Weaning the crias

Victor and Matthias are now old enough to be weaned off milk. Victor is coming along great. A month older than Matthias, Victor has been eating pellets for the past week or two and is getting less milk supplement.

Matthias is still dependent on his mother although he and Victor both enjoy eating hay. Matthias has been introduced to pellets and will eat a little of them but will lose interest right away and go for the hay instead.

This weekend, we are separating the two boys and will keep them in their own pen for feeding and to wean Matthias away from his mom. This will be a tough adjustment for Matthias because he is very attached to his mother. We've learned over the years that crias will often try to escape their pens during weaning to get back to their moms. In the beginning, we'll only separate them for a few hours and give them breaks to get back with their moms. Of course this won't be an issue at all for Victor since he's been bottle fed and is a very independent cria.

Usually during weaning, I worry about the crias getting enough water. It's important to make sure the crias have fresh water available to them and that they are drinking it. I've seen both Victor and Matthias drink from the water bucket so I know they will be fine. We'll keep track of their weight and make sure they are both adjusting well to their new feeding schedule.

Weaning the crias

It wasn't easy getting a picture of these three because somebody was always facing the wrong way or had their face buried in the feed dish. I finally got this picture of Franny (brown & white huacaya), Lucas (center) and little Leroy this afternoon.

We've had a little trouble getting Lucas to eat and drink on his own. I noticed earlier this week, after just about two days separated from their moms, that Lucas was straining over the poop pile. I hadn't seen him drinking on his own so we gave him a bottle of supplement like we've been feeding Leroy. He wasn't too keen on drinking it but we made sure we got the full bottle into him so that he wouldn't get dehydrated. The following morning, to be on the safe side, we let Lucas and the other two crias back in the pen with their moms. Lucas nursed like there was no tomorrow.

Now we've got them on a schedule where we pen them up in the evening at feeding time and let them back out with their moms in the morning. Franny and Leroy dig right in to the sweet multifeed, but Lucas is still not as interested. I've noticed Lucas eating more of the feed this weekend though. I'm hoping he is starting to drink water on his own too. I've made sure he's aware of the water by letting him dip his mouth in the bucket and wetting my fingers and getting a little water in his mouth. We'll still have to keep a close watch on him for a while I guess.

In seven years of raising alpacas, I don't remember ever having this much trouble weaning any of our crias. Fortunately, Lucas is the only one we've ever had to worry about. I can see he's catching on but I don't want to rush him if he isn't ready. For now we'll continue to give him time with his mom during the day until we can see he's able to drink enough water on his own as well as eat pellets.

Oddly enough, as small and young as Leroy is, he's been eating and drinking to his heart's delight - that little guy is definitely a fighter! Since Leroy's eating regular feed now, we're cutting down his bottles to only four per day. He's well over 30 pounds and doing great. Maybe he can teach Lucas to become less dependent on his mom...

Winter is coming...

We just started seeing some very light snow flurries here this weekend but luckily it's still too warm for the snow to stick. The wind today felt bitter cold though and I had to pull out the long johns for the first time this fall! I'm not looking forward to the cold winter ahead.

The time was right for us to pen up our crias away from their moms for weaning. Of course it doesn't make a difference with Leroy because he is still being bottle fed. Franny seems to be handling the separation okay, but Lucas wasn't very happy with it at all. Lucas was humming and trying to find a way out of the pen to get back to his mother. After a couple of hours though, it seemed that all three crias were calmed down and nibbling on hay in their stall. They are set up right next to their moms stall so they are still able to peek their heads through to talk to each other.

We'll have to keep a close eye on Lucas in particular to make sure he is getting enough to eat. Franny has been eating pellets and sweet multifeed for a few weeks now, but Lucas never really seems to be interested in it. I put a few bits of sweet feed in his mouth, one at a time, and he spit them out, one at a time...by the fourth piece though he seemed to realize that it didn't taste too bad. I saw him at the feeder for a little while but I'm not sure how much he ate. He finally relaxed in his new stall and was snacking on hay when I last checked on him. I'm sure he'll be fine but we have to keep an eye on him to make sure he's eating enough now that he can't rely on his mom for meals.

I've also noticed that Franny has a tendency to choke when she eats so I put some grassy hay in the feeder so she'll have to forage through it for the grain. This seems to help whenever we have a problem with an alpaca that chokes. I guess it slows them down so they can't eat as fast. When they eat really fast the saliva combined with the pellets causes the pellets to expand in their throat and they have trouble swallowing it. That's when they start to drool and choke.

Rick and I have different techniques to fix it and I basically try everything I can to help out the choking alpaca. One way that seems to work for Rick is to vigorously rub their neck in long strokes, up and down. Most times I try to pat up and down the neck to loosen things up in there. I'm sure everyone has their own method that works. The alpaca will usually start coughing up green slime from the loosened up feed and after they get some of it out they are fine. Just keep an eye on them and make sure they are acting normal and starting to eat again or nibble on hay.

I'll try to post some pictures this week of our three new roommates Franny, Lucas and Leroy.