Winter alpaca care can have some challenges. First and foremost be prepared before the first freeze.
Your alpacas should be sheared in the spring so that plenty of their fleece has grown back to insulate them from the cold.
Provide them with plenty of feed so that they have the needed fuel to keep their bodies warm. Some of our alpacas are a little chubby, but winter is not the time to restrict their food intake.
We like the roof on our feeder in our open field. It keeps the hay dry for the most part. Occasionally the wind will blow rain at an angle and get the hay wet, but the alpacas still eat it.
Caring For Alpacas
An important aspect of alpaca care in the winter is providing water. A well planned farm pays off in the winter months. Here is where you can learn from our mistake.
We did not allow for enough electricity to our fields. We must use extension cords in the winter to heat our alpacas' water. While our set-up works, it could have been much better.
Due to having to separate our male alpacas (something else we did not anticipate), we have no electricity in one of the pastures and must run an extension cord to that pasture to keep the water from freezing.
The alpacas ignore the cord. They do not chew on it at all. We don't know if it is because they are older (no crias in this field) or if they wouldn't chew on them no matter what.
We use five gallon plastic buckets with heaters in the bottom. We have used these buckets for six years without problems. The buckets are very sturdy.
We have, also, had problems with our hoses freezing. We cut a short hose and attached it to the faucet. The short hose drains as soon as we are finished filling the bucket and does not freeze.
Make sure you know how deep to bury your pipes so they don't freeze in the winter.
We had trouble with our GFI breaker tripping because we were pulling too many watts (our females field has a stock tank heater). By using these smaller buckets we have solved that problem.
Two alpacas can use these buckets for two days before you need to fill them again.
Whatever time of year you purchase your animals, try to keep winter alpaca care in mind when you set-up your farm. Don't fret if you miss something, there's always a solution in alpaca ranching.
