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Our feeding programFeeding programs are very controversial. This has worked extremely
well for us. Our feeding program is based on continuing education on alpacas. The more they teach us, the more it evolves. The most drastic change was based something I read in alpacas magazine. A gringo went to Peru, and told a native alpaca farmer he wanted to learn all about alpacas. The Peruvian farmer told him "Just sit down and watch them. They'll teach you all you need to know". I soon learned how true it is. I noticed that all of the alpacas walked away from "treat time" (pellets) at about the same time, when all the pellets were gone. As an experiment, I doubled the amount. Some left early, some left later. When they all left, there were some pellets left over for the llamas, that get their treats in a different area. I continued to watch, and noticed it was the late pregnancy females, low weight animals, older girls etc. that stayed the longest. I realized at that time that alpacas know a lot more about alpaca nutrition than we do. Like us, at certain times, we need more, and at certain times we need less. I'd heard increase by X% during late pregnancy, heavy milkers add another X% yada yada yada... It's so much easier to let them decide. We have no fatties,
and a few older females that are body scoring much better. We also have
no vet bills, as the animals stay healthy. There are the times that we need to run a "fat farm" in order to bring weight up on a female, usually an older female that has a ton of milk and a hungry cria, sometimes a female not producing enough milk, and one we're dealing with now, Yolanda, a 29 month old girl that arrived here after a year of unsuccessful breeding attempts. She arrived 35 days ago at 91.6 lbs, she's now 104.9 (Update: After 11 weeks in the fat farm, at 112.7 lbs, Yolanda has been successfully bred) Our regimen for a fat farm: Same free feed of orchard but increase the alfalfa to about
30%. This has worked 100% of the time up to this point. It's easy if you have more than one that needs fattening, put the two or more together. If it's just one, you can separate her for an hour daily (or whenever you can) and free feed "treats" alternating days for an hour. Watch crias in side the fat farm (mainly in the first month), they may go for the treats, but whether they do or don't, mom will, and the cria may get diarrhea. We eliminate pellets for a day or so until it goes away. Don't allow the cria to dehydrate. One last note:
Pati & Rick Horn |
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