Animal Health

The approach I use in feeding alpacas attempts to mimic their natural grazing and foraging eating habits. From what I've read, alpacas are both grazers and foragers and are very good at selecting the tiniest morsel when they are searching for “something” they desire or believe is missing from their diet. So since I've removed them from an extensive/endless/free range environment and enclosed them in a pasture, I've eliminated a wide variety of “culinary” choices. Therefore on our farm, they have access to both hay and pasture year around. Probably says a lot about why my alpacas never body score low! more »

Alfalfa (“lucerne” for those “down under”) is leafy forage that is a rich, highly palatable, perennial legume. This type of plant “fixes”atmospheric nitrogen in the root system, converting gaseous nitrogen into plant nitrogen (protein). Like bermuda grass, it is not native to the USA, but likely came in from central Asia and has been known for thousands of years as a superb animal and horse forage. Alfalfa grows almost everywhere in the USA, perhaps best in the mid-south and less so in the upper north. more »