1. What do they need?- simply to survive, not very much. On the Alta-Plano, of Chile, Peru, and Bolivia they subsist on anything from lush grass during the rainy season to almost nothing for a good portion of the year. They have to breed for cria births during the rainy season so that the females will have enough milk to keep the cria alive.
Because of the value of these animals in North America, we are not content to have the mortality rates of South America, nor the fertility rates, which are reportedly anywhere from 30% to 50%. There are those who believe that, when it comes to alpacas, because they are hardy animals, that less is better. At Windy Ridge we believe that less is trouble.
A well known Veterinarian from Kentucky states that in a study of 22000 Llamas and 3000 Alpacas across 27 states, his conclusion was that 80% of Lama medical problems are nutrition related. He says that breeders with 10 to 15 years experience were losing animals due to malnutrition.
We must however not get carried away with the thought of feeding our animals well, to the point of overfeeding. Some alpacas will over eat and become fat if given the opportunity. Watch out for the ones in particular who become the cleanup artists after the others have left just a few morsels of pellets or grain behind.

The best information we have to date, has been published by Dr. LaRue Johnson DVM. of Veterinary Clinics of North America.
We have added to this information, levels published by Dr. Murray Fowler and Dr. Brian Evans. The levels of key elements in total diet are:

	Recommended:	Windy Ridge:
Protein	10% - 16%	14%
Calcium	.6% - .75%	.69%
Phosphorus	.3% - .5%	.44%
Potassium	1% - 1.5% ( Evans )	1.07%
Magnesium	.34% - .4% ( Evans )	.36%
Fibre	25% +	29%
TDN	55% - 65%	60.5%
Vitamin E	up to 400 iu/day	400 iu/day
Selenium	up to 2mg/day	2.02 mg/day
Zinc	60 - 70 ppm	204 ppm
Copper	5 - 10 ppm ( Fowler )	15.7 ppm
Vitamin A	15000 iu/day ( Fowler)	32000 iu/day
Vitamin D	1500 to 3000 iu/day ( Fowler )	4000 iu/day

An alpaca will eat in the order of 1.5% to 2% of their body weight per day. At 2% a 150 lb. alpaca will eat about 1.4 kg of food per day.

2. What are they getting from pastures and hay? We need to analyze the grass and hay to determine the need for and types of supplements that are required for our alpacas. With this information and the above information we can do the calculations necessary.

3. Supplementation: If you ask people if they feed their alpacas a supplement about 95% will say "yes", and of those about 60% will say "in the winter". If you ask what they supplement you will hear all kinds of answers, but mostly you will hear grain, Llama ration, our own grain mixture, pellets, pellets from up north, free choice minerals, mineral blocks, and the last one I heard was dairy goat ration.
At Windy Ridge our answer is: Protein, Calcium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Magnesium, Vitamin E, Selenium, Zinc, Copper, Vitamin A, Vitamin D, and Vitamin B.
If you want to feed grain, first of all make sure that it is cracked or preferably rolled, Alpacas don't digest whole grain very well, and secondly know why you are feeding it. When feeding grain, you are adding a carbohydrate for extra energy or heat (in winter) and with some grains a small amount of protein. Grains are deficient in Calcium, Phosphorus and trace minerals.
If you wish to use free choice minerals you must understand that you are going to get a very wide range of results in your animals. There are some alpacas that will eat up to 50 grams of a mineral powder or more, per day, and many will eat none at all. If the aim is to supplement say 2 mg of selenium/alpaca/day and your free choice mineral supplement has 125mg/kg you better hope the largest consumer of that product does not eat more than 15 to 20 grams a day, and if the product has a low of 30 mg/kg you have to hope that the one that consumes the least amount of the product eats at least 60 grams/day. The truth is, you just don't have a clue what your animals are actually getting on an individual basis.
The trick to uniform supplementation is to provide the required elements, in the right concentrations, in a prepared feed, such as pellets, that the alpacas want to eat so that they will get their share.
At Windy Ridge, first we analyze the hay, then after doing all the calculations, we have the pelleted feed made to our specifications, to bring all the elements in line with requirements, and it is accurately measured and fed in individual portions. A trace mineral salt block is made available but with over 50 alpacas having access to the blocks they consume only about 1/3 of a block in a year, so the trace minerals from the salt block is insignificant and does not enter into our calculations. We make it available for the salt.

4. To determine if what we are doing is OK we do periodic blood sampling. We routinely sample alpacas that are either on the low or high end of the scale, for any particular elements, compared to our other alpacas, along with random samples from other alpacas. We do a mineral panel of seven elements, with occasional add ons such as zinc.
When making a change to the diet with specific results in mind, we give it about 2 or 3 months before doing the next set of blood samples to see if the change has given us the desired result.

Reasons that nutrition is so important:
Viable birth weights
Proper growth rates
Proper development of all body parts, eg. Straight legs etc.
Disease resistance
Eliminates the need for injections re selenium, vitamins E,A,&D
Healthy skin, thus proper follicle and fibre alignment.

Gives the animals genes the ability to live up to their full potential. Geneticists tell us that genes are responsible for about 60% of the animals makeup, the rest is environment.