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| The girls at dinner. L to R Diamond, Penny, Missy, Betsy, Flo and Joy up front |
Fortunately as I said he's healing up. That's the most important thing. And actually the money spent wasn't just for vet bills and medicine. We did end up with some new tools for the farm. Stuff we would have eventually purchased on the "as we can afford it" basis. We bought some commercial clippers and a special set of blades to trim the hair around the wound. Then we discovered that Taxco wasn't going to stand still to have his hair clipped even if it was just a small patch. So we bought an Alpaca Restraint system. It works like a charm and made trimming the hair so much easier. Hopefully we can re-coup the cost on the shears and the restraint system by learning how to do our own shearing. At $25 a head we should have recovered the majority of the cost for the equipment next spring.
So about caring and maintenance of Alpacas. It all starts with feed. We buy our alpaca hay from a local hay farmer. Since alpacas are modified ruminant animals it's important to buy hay that has been raised for cows. True ruminants have four stomachs while an alpaca only has three. Ruminant animals by definition are any even-toed hoofed animal of the suborder Ruminantia, being comprised of cloven-hoofed, cud-chewing quadrupeds, and including, besides domestic cattle, bison, buffalo, deer, antelope, giraffe, chevrotains (mouse deer) and camels (Thanks Dictionary.com). Alpacas are a sub order of the camel family. Horse hay has higher recommended nutrients than an alpaca needs. Since alpacas originated in the mountains of Peru, Chile and Bolivia they utilize their food more efficiently than other ruminants. They will eat leaves off trees and other forage that have lower protein levels and are able to survive when other ruminant animals wouldn't. Our hay farmer provides us with second cut orchard grass in bales weighing about 50 to 70 pounds. If you can afford it and have a large barn for storage it's best to order your hay early in the cutting season which usually begins in early May here in central Virginia. Since we have limited storage space we buy a dozen bales at a time and pray that there are farmers with left over hay at the end of the season so we can make it through the winter. Otherwise it's feed store time and that hay is real expensive.
Alpacas also graze so if you have a large pasture area you will save some money on your hay bill. Alpacas also need grain to supplement their feed. We grain our alpacas with Blue Seal Brand grain pellets formulated for alpacas and llamas. An Alpaca will eat between 1-1/2% to 2% of their body weight per day. So our herd sire Braveheart at 160 pounds will eat somewhere between 2-1/2 and 3-1/4 pounds of feed per day. Each of our alpacas gets just under two cups of grain per day which weighs about 6 to 8 ounces. The balance of their feed is hay. In addition to hay and grain it's important that you provide them with mineral supplements designed for alpacas. These are similar to salt blocks for cattle and horses. The hay runs us around $8 a bale delivered, the grain is around $15 for a 50 pound bag and the minerals run between $2.50 and $4.00 a pound in 10 pound, 25 pound and 50 pound boxes.
One thing I want to mention about supplements is something that we began using as soon as we got our animals moved to our farm. We started them on a daily dose of food grade diatomaceous earth. Each animal gets a teaspoon of DE with their grain everyday. We use the DE to control internal parasitic worms such as the tape worm, barber pole worm and others. To date we have had fecal samples processed for four of our alpacas due to other issues and have had consistently low worm counts. The DE is non-toxic and the worms do not develop an immunity to the DE as they do with other forms of worm control. Every alpaca will have some worms in their stomachs. The important thing is to keep them at the lowest levels possible so they don't become a health problem. The DE seems to be the best solution that we have found. It keeps the worm count extremely low, it's non-toxic to the alpacas, the parasite doesn't develop an immunity to the treatment and it's easily administered with no traumatizing the alpaca with an oral dose of gunk that probably taste awful.
The second most important part of caring for alpacas is to be sure they have plenty of fresh, clean water. An alpaca can consume between 1/2 gallon to 1-1/4 gallons of water per day. It's important to make sure your water buckets are kept filled if you do not have automatic water systems. Especially in the summer months. Our six girls can empty a five gallon bucket and a third of the second bucket between them in about 1/2 a day when the heat and humidity are high.
Well that's it for this post. More on caring and maintaining those cute little animals later.
Hope your days are filled with sunshine.
Livin' the dream at Autumn Ridge Alpacas.
Dave
