DO YOU HAVE INFORMATION ON ALPACAS THAT CAN HELP OTHERS?

We want to provide valuable information on alpacas on this site. We would love to hear your stories about alpacas.

Is it something that could help another alpaca business solve a problem with the animals or fleece? Or a story that can help someone deciding whether they want to make an alpaca investment? Or is it just a great story about the alpaca farming lifestyle?

Read our alpaca tip. We longtime owners learned this just recently. (You can teach old dogs new tricks!)

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We have owned alpacas for ten years and sometimes you learn information on alpacas the hard way. We feed pellets all the time and never had any of our animals choke...until March 2006. We used deep containers to feed our grain/pellets.

Our eldest female began to choke. It was frightening to watch. We massaged her neck and after about 15 minutes she started to hum. When she got her "voice" back, we knew she would be all right.

We immediately built our own long feeder to spread the pellets out so they can not get a large mouthful. So far so good. If you use a deep utility feeder for pellets, we recommend you stop. Better yet, never start.

Read how to build your own feeder. See plans for the feeder that we built to help us keep this scary incident from happening again.

We have always stood by while the alpacas are eating pellets and suggest all owners do this. We, also, recommend you have plastic tubing to push down your alpacas throat to dislodge an obstruction. It may save your alpaca. If you spread your pellets out, chances are you will never have to use the tubing.

Is your alpaca choking or could it be another problem. Read about megaesophagus in alpacas.

Here's another tip:

A common cria defect is having an ear turned inside out. Usually this occurs in a premature cria. You can wrap the base of the ear with micropore tape (a breathable paper tape) so the ear is the right way. Remove it the second day. If you tape the ear early, you should be able to correct the problem.

Read this tip on how to get burrs out of alpaca fleece.

Levin White of Tanners Ridge Alpacas (USA) submitted this tip:

Always keep your animals out of the dirt before the show so that they look great for the judges. If they stay in the barn for a week or two it is not bad for the alpaca. Also, for feeding your alpaca, to avoid choking, our farm has put a gutter across the back of the barn to feed our alpacas. Make sure you spread it farely thin.

Marti Brady from "Andes of Mayberry Alpaca Farm" Fogelsville, PA sent us this tip:

A couple of other eating tips. We use several different ways to feed our gang. In the deep feeders we put some rocks that would be too large to swallow to help slow down the eating and reduce the chance of choking. It also helps to slow down the fast eaters so they don't steal from the slower eaters. We also have a white PVC tube cut in half length ways to make a trough with removable ends so you can clean it once in awhile. I have also used the under side of frisbee dishes if I want to give a treat of special grain out in the pastures or catch pens that are away from the barn. I call my frisbee method my portable feeding dishes.

Trevor from the Gold Coast of Australia relayed this story on alpaca behavior to us:

We recently purchased three alpacas ages 2yr,14 months and 9 months old. The 14 month old was attacked by a dog and came under the back verandah where we noticed the injuries. While applying pressure to Bruno's wounds we haltered the other two and brought them to Bruno to keep him calm. The vet arrived and sedated Bruno to work on the injuries. At that time we took the other two away from the verandah and released them from the halter. Within one minute the two ran back under the verandah to Bruno. There was six of us including the two vets around Bruno yet the two remained a few feet away for several minutes. They then moved about 10 feet away and sat on the concrete keeping an eye on procedings. Bruno is recovering and the three have been more approachable and accepting of patting since the incident.