ALPACA NUTRITIONAlpaca nutrition is complex but important when raising alpacas. An alpaca farm may learn about camelid eating habits through experimenting or the hard way. One alpaca ranch lost two crias. The necropsy showed that the alpacas had starved to death. Unfortunately, the farm did not buy quality hay or have their hay tested. Hay that has straw-like qualities is usually low in protein. Stay away from purchasing hay with this quality. Besides, alpacas don't like chewing it and will loose weight from not eating enough. An alpaca business needs to keep losses to a minimum and so it is very important to pay attention to your alpacas health and nutrition. A non-pregnant alpaca needs 8-10% protein to stay healthy. Pregnant and lactating females need more protein. If alpacas don't get enough protein, they will loose weight and become suseptible to problems. Testing your hay for content will help you determine what to use for supplements to give your alpacas all the necessary vitamins and minerals to keep them healthy. If you plan to sell alpaca products, your fleece quality will be determined by your alpacas health, too. If you want your alpaca sweaters to be of the finest quality, then feed your alpacas quality food. Many people worry about monitoring a cria after it is born to make sure it is putting on weight, as they should, but a lot forget about monitoring the dam. Female alpacas with a cria need to maintain their body weight, too. You should be weighing them periodically to make sure they are not loosing weight while feeding their cria. If you have an alpaca that is loosing weight, there are some things that can be done to keep them at a healthy body score. Alfalfa is higher in protein and can help with alpaca nutrition. Feeding some alfalfa along with their regular hay will help to maintain body weight. Soaked beet pulp shreds are high in protein and can put weight back on your thin alpaca. You get it at your local feed store. DO NOT feed dry. It must be soaked in water. We read that one farm gives their thin alpacas some Ensure by syringe. It's high calorie and will put on weight. Give one cup of cooked brown rice or two tablespoons of rice bran meal. Check your alpacas teeth. If there is a dental problem, an alpaca will eat less. You may consider the fact that your alpaca is stressed and/or has a stomach ulcer. Ulcers can be fatal. Check with a vet about ulcers and medicating if you suspect this is the problem. Shearing seems to help alpacas gain weight. No one is exactly sure, yet, (that we can find) why they gain weight. One theory is that even the mildest heat stress causes a decrease in appetite. Shearing them would cool them off and supposedly increase their appetite. We wouldn't recommend doing this when heading into winter. We tried the soaked beet pulp on our alpacas. A couple we thought should have a small amount of weight added, but one female was really thin. She was the only alpaca that turned her nose up at shredded beet pulp and would not eat it. Even with extra molasses added. So much for that! We have found that alfalfa seems to do the trick for us. We make about a quarter of the feed alfalfa until the weight we feel is good is achieved. Then we back off so that our alpaca doesn't become overweight. We worm our thin alpaca more often than the others. You might want to check your alpaca for worms and do other blood tests to see if something else is going on if they continue to stay thin. Like we said, alpaca nutrition is complex. Hopefully, these few ideas will help you to maintain healthy body weights in your herd and prevent other problems.
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