Winter Maintenance Tips

There is not a lot of Winter Maintenance to be done, this is more of a reflection time where you plan who you want each female to be mated to in the coming season.

It is important that you keep fresh clean meadow hay available at all times as the winter grass is high in water content and low in fibre. Alpacas need long stemmed grass in their diet to keep their digestive system working well.

If you start feeding extra pellets or grain due to a shortage of grass then make sure you do it slowly over about a 10 day period. Different organisms are required to digest different foods that you may feed.

If you have used any outside matings over the Summer or Autumn months, it is now time to start thinking about getting a scan done or running them past a male if you don’t like the idea of scans, just to make sure they have not absorbed their foetus over the winter months. You don’t want to wait another 6 or so months only to find out that your pregnant female is not pregnant at all.