The alpaca industry is advancing, with breeders focusing on larger animals with more fleece. Understanding the nutritional needs of alpacas is crucial for their health and productivity. This article provides an in-depth look at alpaca diet and nutrition, covering everything from their natural feeding habits to practical feeding guidelines.
Introduction: Alpacas and Their Nutritional Needs
Alpacas are domesticated animals native to the Andes Mountains in South America, specifically Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. They are part of the camelid family, closely related to llamas, and known for their soft, luxurious fleece. Historically, shepherds domesticated alpacas as early as 3,500 B.C., valuing their fiber and meat. Now, alpaca farms are located in different regions such as the Northwest and Midwest.
Feeding alpacas correctly is essential for their well-being. A proper diet ensures they lead happy and healthy lives. This guide will provide specifics on what alpacas eat, along with practical dos and don'ts for optimal care.
Natural Diet and Feeding Behavior
In their natural habitat, South American alpaca herds graze on sparse, low-starch native vegetation such as grasses and bushes found high in the mountains. Alpacas are browsers, meaning they are choosy eaters that look for quality over quantity. They don’t eat a lot of food, consuming only about 1.5% of their body weight daily, emphasizing the importance of nutrient-dense feed.
Forage
Forage forms the vast majority of an alpaca's diet. It includes grass, hay, and pastures such as timothy, orchard grass, and brome. Hay should be mold-free and not weedy, with second cutting grass hay being the preferred choice.
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Concentrates
Concentrates are animal feeds rich in energy and/or protein but low in fiber, such as corn, soybean meal, oats, wheat, and molasses. While alpacas are primarily grazing animals, supplementation with grain-based feed may be necessary depending on the alpaca's use. Pregnant and lactating females, as well as growing youngsters, typically benefit from supplemental feed in addition to forage.
Pellets can be a great way to supplement the forage diet, particularly in winter or when extra energy is required. However, it is important to avoid overfeeding concentrates, as this can lead to digestive problems and obesity.
The Alpaca Digestive System
Alpacas are very efficient at digesting their food, thanks to their unique three-chambered stomach, which allows for the slow passage of food. This slow digestion maximizes nutrient extraction. Alpacas are quasi-ruminants with three stomachs. They chew just enough to mix their feed with saliva to form a bolus to be swallowed. While resting, the alpaca will bring up the cud (bolus) and chew it, and then it is swallowed again. It takes about a third of daylight hours for an alpaca to pick enough food.
When we feed alpacas we are actually feeding the bugs in their stomach, which in turn process the food to feed the alpaca. We need to feed protein to the bugs in the alpaca first stomach. The bugs are crucial to the fermentation process. The bugs excrete high quality amino acids to be absorbed by the third stomach compartment (C3) of the alpaca.The critical nitrogen balance in alpacas is very efficient, as they recycle urea through saliva, and return it to the C1 and C2 parts of the stomach.
Like most herbivorous mammals, alpacas have a microbial pool in their intestinal tract that aids in digesting forage. This microbial pool consists of helpful bacteria, protozoa, yeast, and fungi that break down food, allowing the body to absorb nutrients.
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Nutritional Requirements
Alpacas have varying nutritional needs based on their life stage and purpose. Weanlings, pregnant females, and males all have different requirements. A crude protein intake of 12% - 15% is required when the dam gets to the latter stages of pregnancy, and also in the first weeks of lactation. This requires the best paddocks, and/or supplementation. Pastures differ in crude protein (CP) at different times of the year. The same pasture can be 20% CP in spring, but 6% in summer drought. On 20% CP pasture a maintenance alpaca will add 7 lbs of live bodyweight per month and suffer a detrimental effect on fiber (called “blowing out” the fiber). Free choice grazing with little stock in the paddocks can lead to obesity, just as overfeeding supplement can lead to obesity.
Protein requirements are in direct relationship to the need for energy. Energy is sourced from carbohydrates (including sugars), starches, hemi cellulose, and cellulose, through volatile fatty acids from carbohydrate and protein fermentation.
Protein
As a rule of thumb, the greener the pasture, the greater it is in protein - unless it is artificial fertilizer-driven nitrogen flushes.
Alpacas have a lower energy requirement than other ruminants due to the extra length of time food stays in their gut (48 - 54 hours vs. cow at 24 hrs).They have a more efficient digestive system and are able to extract more energy from the fiber part of their diet. Most ruminants get energy from cell contents, and generally not from cell walls (hemi cellulose, cellulose and lignin). You can get your forage (grass and hay) analyzed and this will tell you how much is available from there. We feed our alpacas 2nd cut grass hat with 8-12% protein. Minimize the stems from the alfalfa, as the alpacas will pick through the hay to reach the leaves, wasting hay and your money. It takes more energy to try and digest the stems than the stem can nutritionally offer, so they bypass this part of the hay.
Vitamins and Minerals
Skin exposed to daily, direct sunlight makes vitamin D, which helps maintain strong and healthy bones. Alpacas, with their denser fleece and northern sun exposure, often don’t receive enough daily sunlight and UV exposure to get their recommended vitamin D.
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Supplementing salt is essential to a balanced llama and alpaca diet. A lack of dietary copper can cause diseases like anemia and other health problems in camelids. However, ingesting too much of this mineral is also problematic and can cause copper toxicity and other issues.
Mazuri Alpaca Feeds
Mazuri has developed specialized alpaca feeds to meet the changing needs of alpaca farms. These feeds are designed to provide optimal nutrition for various life stages and production goals. Mazuri alpaca feeds were reformulated to meet the changing needs of alpaca farms.
- Mazuri® Alpaca & Llama Maintenance Diet: A basic diet for non-fiber producing alpacas and llamas.
- Mazuri® Alpaca Care: Provides basic nutritional needs for all life stages, with moderate protein levels, increased dietary fiber and sodium, and added flaxseed for immune system support and fleece quality.
- Mazuri® Alpaca Performance: A premier-quality diet for competition and fiber-producing animals, with improved dietary fiber and starch balance, and increased sodium, selenium, zinc, folic acid, biotin, and vitamins A, D, and E.
- Mazuri® Alpaca Complete Life: Meets the high energy and nutrient demands of growing crias, breeding adults, Suri alpacas, senior animals, and animals in need of weight management.
Feeding Guidelines: Dos and Don'ts
Dos
- Provide High-Quality Forage: Offer high-quality, free-choice hay or pasture with their feed. Forage should be the foundation of their diet.
- Monitor Body Condition: Regularly assess your alpacas' body condition to ensure they are neither underweight nor overweight.
- Give Fresh Water: Ensure a reliable supply of fresh, clean water.
- Provide Mineral Supplements: Offer mineral supplements to meet their specific needs.
- Maintain Good Hygiene: Keep feeding areas clean to prevent disease.
- Test Your Hay and Pasture: Analyze your hay or pasture to determine possible nutrient deficiencies.
Don'ts
- Avoid Overfeeding Concentrates: Too many concentrates can lead to digestive problems and obesity.
- Avoid Feeding Moldy Hay: Moldy hay can cause respiratory issues and other health problems.
- Do Not Ignore Dental Health: Regular dental check-ups are important for proper chewing and digestion.
- Do Not Overlook Pasture Maintenance: Proper pasture management is essential for grazing alpacas.
Managing Microbial Balance
Maintaining a healthy microbial pool is crucial for alpaca digestion. An imbalance can lead to improper digestion, diarrhea, changes in pH, regurgitation, weight loss, and nutritional deficiencies. To keep your alpaca’s microbes happy, feed a constant source of slowly digested plant fiber, like hay or pasture grasses.
Special Considerations
- Fiber Production: If raising alpacas for fiber production, wait to switch to a new feed until after shearing season but before breeding season.
- Northern Climates: Alpacas in northern climates may require additional vitamin D supplementation due to limited sunlight exposure.
- Senior Alpacas: Older animals may have difficulty chewing, so consider feeds that are easier to ingest and digest. Mazuri® Alpaca Complete Life feed supports senior alpacas and alpacas with weight management needs. It has beet pulp and molasses to make it taste great and tempt picky eaters. Plus, added probiotics help support gastrointestinal and immune health.
- Growing and Reproducing Alpacas: Choose feed that provides higher energy, nutrients to support reproduction function and fiber to aid digestive health. Look for feed labels with added selenium and vitamin E-antioxidants that support reproduction and other essential body systems.
- Fiber Quality: If you’re raising alpacas for fiber production or show competitions, choose a premium feed designed for fiber-producing animals.
Scientific Studies on Alpaca Nutrition
Despite the importance of alpacas to the economy of rural communities in the Peruvian Andes, studies on animal energetics and the protein metabolism of these animals are particularly lacking. In this study, a high-quality diet consisting of a blend of oat hay and alfalfa pellets (70:30 ratio as a percentage on a fed basis) was offered to male Huacaya alpacas, simulating two levels of intake (separate experiments): a maintenance level and an ad libitum level (40 and 50 g of DM per kg of BW0.75, respectively), using metabolism crates. Alpacas are well adapted to consume the poor-quality forages present in the arid conditions of the Andean Altiplano. However, studies focusing on understanding the relationship between diet digestibility and intake are scarce. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of two levels of dry matter intake (DMI) on a metabolic body weight (BW0.75) basis. The effects of a maintenance level of intake and an ad libitum level of intake (40 and 50 g of dry matter (DM) per kg of BW0.75, respectively) on the apparent diet digestibility and partitioning of specific nutrients (energy, carbon (C), and nitrogen (N)) of alpacas that were fed a blend of oat hay and alfalfa pellets (70:30 ratio as a percentage on a fed basis) were evaluated.
Five adult intact male alpacas (BW = 62.9 ± 8.09 kg at the beginning of the study) were fed with the experimental diet and trained to be allocated in metabolism crates for 30 days. After the completion of this phase, two separate experiments for each level of intake were carried out, each lasting for twenty-six days (with the final five days taken for samples and raw data collection). In both experiments, the animals responded differently in terms of nutrient supply and changes in BW (−140 and 100 g/d for the maintenance and ad libitum levels of intake, respectively). Oat hay consumption was rather similar in both experiments, which may be explained by a reduced ingredient selectivity at the ad libitum level of intake. Diet digestibility was similar in both experiments, despite the greater fecal output of nutrients with the increased level of diet intake. In line with this, diet metabolizability, calculated as the ratio between metabolizable energy (ME) and gross energy (GE) contents, indicated a similar energy utilization of the diet. The apparent digestibility of the organic matter (OMD) ranged from 655 to 669 g/kg DM. Water consumption at the ad libitum level of intake was 21% higher than the observed mean at the maintenance level of intake. Fecal outputs of dietary energy, C, and N accounted for the largest source of excreted nutrients, regardless of the level of intake. The N retention increased from 0.439 at the maintenance level of intake, to 0.473 g of DM/kg BW0.75 when the alpacas were fed ad libitum.