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Alpaca Nutrition News                                    September 2008

Treating thin/underweight females

Improving an underweight female's diet in an attempt to increase weight gain is more effective during certain stages of gestation or lactation. Body scoring should be done in the first two months of lactation. This allows the owner adequate time to recoup weight lost during early lactation before the delivery of the next cria. A long lead time is especially necessary if females score 3 or below (on a scale on 1 - 10) at 2 months post-partum. Ruthanne McCaslin, D.V.M. recommends holding off re-breeding for 6 - 12 months if the female scores below 4. An alternative is to wean the cria early to give the dam more time to re-gain weight.

Nutritionally speaking, the female must compete with either the cria already on the ground or the fetus, depending on stage of gestation. She herself is way back in line when it comes to apportioning dietary energy during either pregnancy or lactation. Two stages that take priority are:

  • Between parturition and about the first two months, additional dietary energy will go directly into milk production.

  • During the third trimester (approximately the last four months) of gestation , additional dietary energy goes into fetal development.

The best way to effectively increase female weight gain is to feed additional energy and protein at approximately two months after parturition, when the cria has started to consume solid food, and the beginning of the third trimester.

Energy can be in the form of high quality alfalfa, grain, or molasses. Protein, which is converted to energy in the rumen, is supplied by high quality alfalfa and soybean meal. Feeding a concentrated probiotic such as MSE paste or drench increases energy intake AND improves efficiency of feed utilization. Females that score a 3 or below in early lactation will have greater potential to be at ideal weight at parturition with the addition of a probiotic.

A nice energy and protein supplement can be made with alfalfa meal and/or corn and flax seed. Make sure that a vitamin and mineral mix is always available when using non-bagged supplements.

Please note: Any change in diet, whether it is an increase/change in roughage or addition of grain, should be done gradually. The rumen microflora need about two weeks to adapt to diet change. It this is not done gradually, the result can be either diarrhea or constipation.

MSE probiotics are available at naturs-way.com. Please send any questions or comments to Lark Burnham, ruminant nutritionist at: lark@naturs-way.com.

Our website now contains an archive of current and past newsletters (http://naturs-way.com/alpaca_newsletter/newsletter.htm) and articles printed in American Livestock magazine (http://naturs-way.com/livestock_articles/articles.htm).

 

 

      


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