How to Feed Alpacas
In their natural environment, alpacas are herbivores that eat grass, shrubs, and weeds. Monitoring your alpaca's weight and coat can reveal how to feed your pet for optimum results, and you can adjust its diet accordingly.
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Instructions
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Learn More About Alpacas
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Expect your alpaca to chew cud like a cow. Alpacas love grass and will browse on weeds and shrubs happily.
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Know that you may need to give your alpaca supplementary vitamins, especially during pregnancy.
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Look out when feeding a group of alpacas who have recently been introduced to each other. Alpacas may spit.
Prepare Your Alpaca's Food
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Purchase your alpaca's grain from a specialty livestock grain supplier nearby or online.
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Look for cold-pressed foods for your alpaca, which can be softer and easier for your alpaca to chew.
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Buy alpaca grain that contains crude fat and protein of at least 12 percent. Salt levels should be between 6 and 7 percent, as well as the Vitamins A, D, E, iron, zinc, cobalt, and selenium.
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Look for the best source of clean water for your alpaca. They need access to fresh water all day.
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Consider a mineral supplement for your alpacas. In the wild, they get more selenium and copper and may develop deficiencies in captivity.
Feed Your Alpaca
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Add alpaca feed to a long, narrow feeder. This will decrease the amount of competition between animals.
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Stand by and work while your alpacas eat. You can keep your alpacas safe and be sure that no alpacas choke on their feed.
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Allow your alpacas to graze on grass and weeds during the day in a pasture. Pastures with clover, alfalfa, annual rye grass and orchard grass are all excellent for alpacas. Allow 1 acre for every 5 alpacas.
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Tips & Warnings
If your alpaca seems to be gulping its food down, you can add some egg-sized smooth stones to the trough to slow it down while eating.
Avoid pastures with perennial rye and fescue grasses.
Check that the pasture and outlying fields do not contain rhododendron, holly and azalea plants, which are toxic to alpacas.
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Comments
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I think Alpaca farming is a great business, and the key to a successful business is to create and sell as many Alpaca Products.They provide me more product such as lean and slightly sweet tasting meat, Leather, fiber and it is a Eco-friendly animal. alpacafarming
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Good, great information! :o)
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maryegbertpt
Jul 21, 2009
Alpacas can NOT graze on alfalfa. Too much alfalfa in their diet can cause fatty liver disease!
