Have you checked your alpaca’s body score lately?

Please note: if you live someplace warm you can go ahead and ignore this entire post, it really doesn’t apply to you, at least in this context. If on the other hand, you are one of the silly fools that has chosen a life in the significantly chillier north, please read on.

As one of the first snow/sleet/rain storms of the oncoming winter season hits us here in the Northeast, it’s worth making sure that you have put your hands on your alpacas recently. Don’t presume that because they “look” round and healthy that they are, fleece can disguise alot. This is precisely the sort of weather (damp and cold) which will expose a weak and thin alpaca for what they are. That’s no fun. Those alpacas that are under-conditioned, particularly moms with tubby little summer crias that are sucking the calories right off of them, are often especially vulnerable when the first cold snap hits.  It should also be said that thin animals also make wonderful targets for intestinal parasites (though high parasite loads are often at least as much of a symptom as they are a cause) and the diarrhea that often follows from that can just acerbate the problem. More on GI parasites another time though (a deep topic on their own), let’s stick to cold, lack of body condition, and how to address it.

I’d love to tell you of course that we knew this all going into our life as alpaca owners but the truth is that we got our arses kicked on more than one occasion by Mother Nature before finally learning our lesson.  Winter would blow in with several days of sub-freezing temperatures and someone in the herd would crash. We never lost anyone but we did learn in fairly short order that it’s a lot less work to be proactive in this regard versus supporting a sick member of the herd after they go down. A Sick mom and a cria that all of a sudden needs a bottle but doesn’t necessarily want it. In January. Something which is best to avoid.

Though I am loathe to tell folks to just feed more—there are already far too many alpacas being fed grain that they don’t need—if in fact you encounter animals that are thin this time of year you should at minimum up their access to calories, and usually an increase in their daily grain ration is the easiest way to accomplish this. Here at CCNF, our mom and cria feed groups that birthed out together, and more often than not have stayed have together as a unit since, get their grain ration shifted as the crias get older, usually as the little farts hit around 3 months of age and are hitting their maximum effectiveness as adorable little calorie-sucking parasites in their own right. Those groups are almost all now being offered free-choice grain as we enter the wintertime. They may have started the fall with a daily grain ration of anywhere from 1.5 to 3 cups of grain (it has to do with the size of our grain scoops) either with or without a creep feeder for the crias but as the weather gets colder we shift their ration up.  First to 2 scoops instead of 1 scoop of grain per adult animal, and then when in doubt we shift to our big blue free choice feeders which hold an entire 50 lb. bag of grain in them.  Usually by 4 months of age the crias have started to eat at least some hay and grain on thier own anyway, so allowing the entire feed group to access as much feed as they desire takes even further caloric pressure off of the dams.  The bottom line heading into December and January is that when in doubt we will hedge on the side of more supplementation rather than less.

This is northern alpaca management 101. Understand that going into cold weather you want your herd (and especially your lactating moms) in an ideal world to all be slightly rounded when you feel their topline just forward of the hips. If the flesh between the two bottom tips of the spinal vertabrae and the top point (think dorsal bone) feels concave (for those not familiar with the alpaca’s anatomy imagine the vertabrae being shaped like an inverted “T” when viewed head on), that animal is thin and in need of some adjustement in it’s nutritional input. The good news is that nutritional management of alpacas really isn’t that complicated, perhaps some of the best proof of that being that fact that I can do it. Put your hands on your animals early and often and remember: the fat ones don’t die.