Keeping cool - the number one summer priority
The number one killer of alpacas in the United States are heat stress ailments. It's essential to keep your animals cool during the upcoming hot summer months. Let's consider some of the options.
Fans, a must have... Fans are wonderful way to help alpacas get through a hot summer day. I recommend large "barrel" style fans. They push so much air that alpacas can benefit from sitting on either side of the fan! What I like to do is set up a couple right along dividing panels in the barn. Boys can lay on the "suck" side, girls on the "blow" side. Large oscillating fans, with very substantial bases, are also wonderful for circulating air in large areas. But for the price of one barrel fan, or two large stand-up fans, you can get about seven or eight of the 24" turbo fans that hang nicely on fence panels. Make sure you secure your fans properly... you don't want them falling over, resulting in either a wrecked fan or a hurt alpaca.
Sand pits are a method that I've heard of being an evaporative cooling technique. Essentially, you make a sand box and keep it wet. This might be a good option for someone that has to head to work during the heat of the day... you'd just water it down heavily before heading out. I personally don't use them. And let me tell you, if that sand stays in their fiber until shearing time (sand boxes being a bit difficult to move once they're made), you're going to have an upset shearer or you'll be going through a set of combs and cutters every animal!
Baby pools have been a popular option for alpaca people for a while... they are quite effective. Putting 3 to 6 inches of water in a baby pool can service a good number of alpacas over the course of a day. I no longer use them from one big reason -- coccidiosis among my crias dropped off significantly when I withdrew them. I had observed that crias love to drink out of baby pools; maybe because they are lower to the group than my waterers. The girls track nasties into the water, making it the alpaca equivalent of a "chicken pox blanket". Some other downfalls to the baby pool method -- some alpacas will lay in them all day, leading to fiber rot on their legs and bellies which will not grow back in time for winter; they tend to get slippery, I've seen many alpacas hit the ground hard slipping getting in or out of a pool; and there is just never enough pools to get around, so fights will frequently errupt on hot days, further stressing animals. I recommend against baby pools.
Shade, the good ole fashioned way. Another alpaca essential. Tree shade is great, but in lue of trees, consider purchasing one of those "$795" car ports or a portable event tent. Especially good if you have an area that tends to get a breeze.
Clear water! It can never be emphasized enough -- plenty of water will help alpacas stay hydrated. These are not the kind of camelids that survive well in the desert. If they are finishing off their water buckets by the end of the day, you don't have enough buckets out! Watch out for how you hang them, too. Alpacas can climb up and dip their legs in the buckets, which you should try to prevent (see baby pool problems). Also, be particularly certain that crias can access the water; if needed, make a "creep feeder" set up with special water buckets just for your young ones.
Leg sprays, the clear winner when you have the option! Other than watching the "pronk fest at dusk", my favorite summertime alpaca activity is leg sprays. I get in my swim trunks on hot days and drag out the water hose. They know what's coming, and they come running! Some are water hogs and get right in front, but if you get a good technique down, you can keep 50 alpacas at bay, lined up, taking a spray to the legs. Be certain not to wet down their backs, as wet fiber on top of them can actually trap heat close to their skin on their backs, under the matted fleece. You can wet down everything else... bellies, legs and bums are the best. Many will kick out their legs or raise their tails for a special little spray. Even necks can be wet down, if you're careful not to wet down their backs. If an alpaca keeps getting pushy in the group, just give them a quick misting spray to the face... they hate being face sprayed, but with out a little disciplinary action, your pushy ones will make this a not-fun venture. If one is really bad about it, you can douse their whole head til its dripping... they learn to calm it, and kind of hang their head really pathetically when this becomes necessary. Otherwise, this is great fun! I would recommend having at least tennis shoes on; flip flops are just begging for you to get injured when one pronks with excitement and a couple of toenials come crashing down on your foot. Over the years, I use this opportunity to teach them their names -- as I spray an individual's legs, I repeat their name over and over. When its 85 to 95 degrees, I'll legs spray 2-3 times in the mid-day... but when it gets over 95, I go out nearly hourly from 10a to 6p, especially for my girls. Boys require less attention, in my opinion -- they aren't pregnant or producing milk, after all. Having said that, you don't want your boys to "burn out" (become temporarily or permanently reproductively sterile due to excessive heat), so try to get some water on those testicles if you can. Finally, I would suggest getting a "high pressure" nossle, an inexpensive one will do. You will find it much easier to direct the spray where you need to if the water stream is narrow and shots 15-20 feet.
Have fun getting wet with your alpacas!!
Rob Long
5/2/10
Fans, a must have... Fans are wonderful way to help alpacas get through a hot summer day. I recommend large "barrel" style fans. They push so much air that alpacas can benefit from sitting on either side of the fan! What I like to do is set up a couple right along dividing panels in the barn. Boys can lay on the "suck" side, girls on the "blow" side. Large oscillating fans, with very substantial bases, are also wonderful for circulating air in large areas. But for the price of one barrel fan, or two large stand-up fans, you can get about seven or eight of the 24" turbo fans that hang nicely on fence panels. Make sure you secure your fans properly... you don't want them falling over, resulting in either a wrecked fan or a hurt alpaca.
Sand pits are a method that I've heard of being an evaporative cooling technique. Essentially, you make a sand box and keep it wet. This might be a good option for someone that has to head to work during the heat of the day... you'd just water it down heavily before heading out. I personally don't use them. And let me tell you, if that sand stays in their fiber until shearing time (sand boxes being a bit difficult to move once they're made), you're going to have an upset shearer or you'll be going through a set of combs and cutters every animal!
Baby pools have been a popular option for alpaca people for a while... they are quite effective. Putting 3 to 6 inches of water in a baby pool can service a good number of alpacas over the course of a day. I no longer use them from one big reason -- coccidiosis among my crias dropped off significantly when I withdrew them. I had observed that crias love to drink out of baby pools; maybe because they are lower to the group than my waterers. The girls track nasties into the water, making it the alpaca equivalent of a "chicken pox blanket". Some other downfalls to the baby pool method -- some alpacas will lay in them all day, leading to fiber rot on their legs and bellies which will not grow back in time for winter; they tend to get slippery, I've seen many alpacas hit the ground hard slipping getting in or out of a pool; and there is just never enough pools to get around, so fights will frequently errupt on hot days, further stressing animals. I recommend against baby pools.
Shade, the good ole fashioned way. Another alpaca essential. Tree shade is great, but in lue of trees, consider purchasing one of those "$795" car ports or a portable event tent. Especially good if you have an area that tends to get a breeze.
Clear water! It can never be emphasized enough -- plenty of water will help alpacas stay hydrated. These are not the kind of camelids that survive well in the desert. If they are finishing off their water buckets by the end of the day, you don't have enough buckets out! Watch out for how you hang them, too. Alpacas can climb up and dip their legs in the buckets, which you should try to prevent (see baby pool problems). Also, be particularly certain that crias can access the water; if needed, make a "creep feeder" set up with special water buckets just for your young ones.
Leg sprays, the clear winner when you have the option! Other than watching the "pronk fest at dusk", my favorite summertime alpaca activity is leg sprays. I get in my swim trunks on hot days and drag out the water hose. They know what's coming, and they come running! Some are water hogs and get right in front, but if you get a good technique down, you can keep 50 alpacas at bay, lined up, taking a spray to the legs. Be certain not to wet down their backs, as wet fiber on top of them can actually trap heat close to their skin on their backs, under the matted fleece. You can wet down everything else... bellies, legs and bums are the best. Many will kick out their legs or raise their tails for a special little spray. Even necks can be wet down, if you're careful not to wet down their backs. If an alpaca keeps getting pushy in the group, just give them a quick misting spray to the face... they hate being face sprayed, but with out a little disciplinary action, your pushy ones will make this a not-fun venture. If one is really bad about it, you can douse their whole head til its dripping... they learn to calm it, and kind of hang their head really pathetically when this becomes necessary. Otherwise, this is great fun! I would recommend having at least tennis shoes on; flip flops are just begging for you to get injured when one pronks with excitement and a couple of toenials come crashing down on your foot. Over the years, I use this opportunity to teach them their names -- as I spray an individual's legs, I repeat their name over and over. When its 85 to 95 degrees, I'll legs spray 2-3 times in the mid-day... but when it gets over 95, I go out nearly hourly from 10a to 6p, especially for my girls. Boys require less attention, in my opinion -- they aren't pregnant or producing milk, after all. Having said that, you don't want your boys to "burn out" (become temporarily or permanently reproductively sterile due to excessive heat), so try to get some water on those testicles if you can. Finally, I would suggest getting a "high pressure" nossle, an inexpensive one will do. You will find it much easier to direct the spray where you need to if the water stream is narrow and shots 15-20 feet.
Have fun getting wet with your alpacas!!
Rob Long
5/2/10
Springtime and "the Plops"
Ah, springtime! Green grass after a long, brown winter. The alpacas can't eat it up fast enough. Inevitably resulting in... the ploppy green monster poops. All of the sudden, your alpacas feces look more like cow patties than rabbit pelts, like they are supposed to.Somewhere along the line, you might have been socialized (in the alpaca industry) to believe that ploppy poops are a sure fire sign of parasites. Its a perfectly reasonable assumption, the leaps of logic are very sound... moisture, warmth plus fresh grass equals parasite blooms. However, I would like you to take pause before taking action. Consider this: your small ruminent (your alpaca) has not had fresh grass in the belly for quite some time... it will take a little while for their rumine juices to become seasonally attuned to their new forage. How does this factor into the condition you are observing?
Food for thought (pun intended) -- are they eating up sooo much fresh grass because they fear they will never see it again, or is it that they are not getting quite as much nutrition out of the forage? From what I understand, grasses tend to become more nutritious as they mature into the summertime. Factor that with the idea that your ruminents are changing their belly chemistry (for lack of a better term), and additionally factor in that your ruminents are changing for a dry forage (hay) to a wet forage (grass), and you might come to an alternate conclusion that the plops could be occurring for another reason... one which would concern you much less than parasites.
Although many farm still practice monthly worming schedules or worm at the first sign of a plop, I would encourage you all to try something different... When you see a fresh plop, strap on a glove and either take a fecal from the animal that produced it, or dig into that plop, and recover about a tablespoon full of feces -- take that to your veterinarian and have a fecal analysis performed. Although it would be surprising if no parasites were present, you might be surprised that no high parasite load is present! This information can drastically alter what you do in response -- in particular, much of the time the appropriate response would be to do nothing. Let's say the fecal analysis does show a high load of parasites, worthy of treatment -- you'll not necessarily know what to treat for unless a fecal analysis is performed; Corrid or Albon for coccidiosis, Ivermection or Dectalmec for Strongyles, etc.
To summarize, use the tool of fecal analysis to inform you which animals to treat and with what they should be treated. Unless your animal's body condition is poor and absent some other tale tell evidence, a ploppy poop should not alarm you to the point of taking action rashly. Consult your veterinarian on how to implement a fecal analysis - parasite management plan.
Best of luck to you in this time of greenery, parasites, crias birthing and shearing!
Rob Long
4/15/10
A Comment on Automatic Waterers
Stainless steel, simple to clean, automatically heat the water to well above freezing, little maintainance, much relief in terms of convenience. Oh, how I miss my waterers. With the brutally cold winter that has washed through the Midwest, the danged spigot attached to the underground pipes froze, and inhibited water from flowing to the waterers, thus forcing me to turn them off. And I feel for my poor alpacas. Back to drinking out of buckets of water that tend to ice over at night; at least until I get the water supply lines fixed! My advice ~ put your waterers on seperate water lines, or take special care to install your spigots to resist these cold snaps! The water supply has never frozen since I've put it in, but this is an extremely cold winter... it brings be back to why I put these in...
It was winter a few years back, a really bad ice storm came through, it was really, really cold. Hoses were not working at all, of course, and the only way I could get the buckets to stop from freezing over was to add hot water to the buckets whenever I filled them, despite the heaters in the buckets; which only kept the water slushy! Hot water, something I only had in the house, was down the hill about 200 feet... an eternity of crawling, when the ice on the ground is four inches thick! Hauling five gallon jugs, two at a time, up the hill; three trips every three hours; I ended up with pneumonia that lasted a month. At least this time, minus the ice, we can get water up to the barn in the Gator!
So it turns out that the waterers have been absolutely wonderful for when its really cold. The water they drink doesn't freeze them from the inside out, and talk about piece of mind on cold nights! And on the other hand, in the summers, the metal containers seem to keep the water cool. Most importantly, one of the easiest things that you can do to ensure a happy, healthy herd is to provide them plenty of clean water. Waterers are very much worth it! Just make certain that you install them properly to gain their full benefit.
Rob Long
1/25/10
It was winter a few years back, a really bad ice storm came through, it was really, really cold. Hoses were not working at all, of course, and the only way I could get the buckets to stop from freezing over was to add hot water to the buckets whenever I filled them, despite the heaters in the buckets; which only kept the water slushy! Hot water, something I only had in the house, was down the hill about 200 feet... an eternity of crawling, when the ice on the ground is four inches thick! Hauling five gallon jugs, two at a time, up the hill; three trips every three hours; I ended up with pneumonia that lasted a month. At least this time, minus the ice, we can get water up to the barn in the Gator!
So it turns out that the waterers have been absolutely wonderful for when its really cold. The water they drink doesn't freeze them from the inside out, and talk about piece of mind on cold nights! And on the other hand, in the summers, the metal containers seem to keep the water cool. Most importantly, one of the easiest things that you can do to ensure a happy, healthy herd is to provide them plenty of clean water. Waterers are very much worth it! Just make certain that you install them properly to gain their full benefit.
Rob Long
1/25/10