Advanced Nutrition Topic Index

Understanding basic camelid nutrition is important for the well being of your animals. Alpaca breeders are excellent at searching out information so that they understand these animals better and provide the best care they can. This webpage provides examples of how to calculate the nutritional requirements of camelids. There are links to the nutrition basics page so that you can refamiliarize yourself with some terminology.

Nutrition requirements are for groups of animals not each indiviual. What this means is, if you have a group of females the calulation is for the group. Weights are the average of the group. Intake determined is the average for all in the group, and so on. So, what we mean is don't calculate the requirements for each individual animal you have. Click on the following links to learn more.

• Calculation tips.
• Calculating feed intake.
• Feed component calculations.
• Calculating protein requirement.
• Calculating energy requirement.

Camelid articles:

• Nitrogen balance and blood metabolites of alpaca (Lama pacos) fed three forages of different protein content.

This article provides data that establishes a CP requirement for alpacas at a lower altitude.

• Body condition and blood metabolite characterization of alpaca (Lama pacos) three months prepartum and offspring three months pastpartum.
• Plasma metabolites and nitrogen balance in Lama glama associated with forage quality at altitude.
• Digestibility, nitrogen balance, and blood metabolites in llama (Lama glama) and alpacas (Lama pacos) fed barley or barley alfalfa diets.
• Digestibility and nitrogen retention in llamas and goats fed alfalfa, C3 grass, and C4 grass hays.

Calculation Tips

The calulations we are helping you with come from the NRC publication below. This is not a bad resource to have on hand. The scientific community works with the metric system. So, most of the calculations are in metric. Don't be alarmed we will help you through the conversions. A couple of things to remember:

• KEEP UNITS STRAIGHT!! Most often the problems people run into when calculating is they mixup the units.
• Many of the equations for requirements are in kilograms. There are 2.2 pounds per kilogram or 454 grams per pound.

All of the information for nutritionI use is out of this book

Feed Intake

Feed intake will vary with age, gender and production. There are a couple of things to keep in mind:

• You need to keep "as-fed" and "dry matter" intake straight. What I mean is, know what you are working with and make sure you are feeding the "as-fed" amount. We'll show you this below.
• Bunk management is a tell-tale of what is going on with your animal. Just because you have figured out what the pen should be fe, doesn't mean they are going to eat it. Watch your feed funk...you'll get a feel for what they are eating and it will change with environmental and other factors.

Comparing pasture dry matter and hay dry matter demonstrates the application of dry matter and how it is used to compare "apples to apples".

• Pasture grass is usually around 30 to 35% dry matter. Hay is ussually 88 to 93% dry matter.
• The recommended daily dry matter intake (DMI) for an adult alpaca is between 1.5 and 2.0% of body weight.
• So, for a 150 pound alpaca the DMI is 2.3 to 3.0 pounds per day.
• Lets use the value 3.0 for DMI, 35% for DM pasture gras and 90% for hay. The as-fed required for pasture grass is 3.0/0.35= 8.6 pounds of pasture grass per day.
• The required hay would be 3.0/0.90 = 3.3 pounds per day as-fed.

Now lets say we are looking at a group of 2 year old females that weigh 120 pounds...What would the DMI be for them at 2.0% BW? What would the "as-fed" amount be if the hay is 92.3% DM?

• First we convert the BW to kilograms: 120/2.2 = 54.5 kg
• Now we can take the 65.9 and determine the DMI by 54.5 X 0.02 = 1.09 kg DMI
• We now convert the DMI to "as-fed" by taking 1.09/0.923 = 1.18 kg/d or 2.60 pounds/d.

Feed Component Calculations

Once you have analyzed your feed what do you do with the information? The answer is to calculate the amount of each component provided by the feed. For this example we will use the feed analysis used in the Nutrition Basics page. From that page we will use the following:

• Dry matter (DM) = 91.9%
• Crude Protein (CP) = 17.5%
• Net energy M = 1.28 Mcal/kg
• Calcium = 0.66%

Each of these components values are on a DM basis. DM was shown above. The CP fraction of the feed is calculated as:

• For 1 kg of feed, 17.5% is CP: 1 kg = 1000 g; 1000g X 0.175 = 175 g CP/kg DM feed.

Energy needs to be converted to metabolizable energy (ME) to plug into the formulas below.

• NEm is converted to ME by 1.28/0.644 = 1.99 Mcal/kg

Calcium is calculated the same as CP:

• 1000 g X 0.0066 = 6.6 g/kg

Converting the components you want to look at prepares you to compare what is provided in the feed to what is required by the animals.

» Protein Requirement Calculations

Crude protein (CP) is explained on the Nutrition Basics page. Here we will outline what the camelids CP requirement is and show an example of how to calculate the requirement.

Data from Peru set the daily CP requirement at 3.5 g CP/kg MBW

Data from BYU (Robinson et al., 2005) used the same method and came up with 5.5 g CP/kg MBW. The difference between the two research results comes down to altitude; the Peru data is at about 14,000 feet, while the BYU data is at 4,500 feet in elevation. So for me I start with the 5.5 g CP/kg MBW As shown below:

• For a 150 pound alpaca we first need to convert the pounds to kilograms.
• 150/2.2 = 68.2 kg
• Next we calculate the MBW by taking the 68.2^0.75 = 23.7
• Then, 23.7 x 5.5 = 130.4 g CP needed for maintenance.

Most calulators have this (^) function. Next we need to add the different production components.

Growth

• Add 0.284 g CP/g of gain

This is for weaned crias to 2 year olds. Look at what your 2 year olds are doing as far as growth goes. If you have some that are still growing more than 100 gm per day, you will need to keep adding this component. One pound is equal to 454 grams. Be sure to convert the average gain from pounds to grams.

Pregnancy

• 1 to 8 months . . . Same as maintenance
• 8 to 9th month . . . . Add 0.94 g CP/kg MBW
• 9 to 10th month . . . Add 1.94 g CP/kg MBW
• 10 to 11th month . . Add 3.23 g CP/kg MBW

A point to keep in mind here is that you may have young females that are both pregnant and still growing. The fetus has first priority on protein, so shorting the protein will take it from the mother first then the unborn cria. The reason the requirement goes up during the last trimester is becuase that is when the cria fetus increases in size 50 to 75% of its birth weight. You'll see this same increase in nutrient for energy.

Lactation

• Add 60.6 g CP/kg of milk

This one is key...heavy lactating mothers will produce upwards of 2.5 kg of milk per day. Cutting corners here will mean protein being pulled from the mother and also reduce milk production, hindering the nursing cria.

Fleece

• Add 4.3 g CP/kg of yearly fleece

Example. . .

If we have a group of 2 year old females that are open, they weigh 120 pounds, they are gaining an average of 1/4 pound per day and last year's shearing they produced 6.2 pounds of fleece. What is their CP requirement?

• First we need to convert the weights... Body weight (BW) of 120 pounds/2.2 = 54.5 kg; gain of 1/4 pound is .25/454 = 113.5 g/d; fleece of 6.2 pounds is 6.2/2.2 = 2.82 kg
• Next we convert the body weight to metabolic body weight (MBW): 54.5^0.75 = 20.1 kg
• Maintenance CP is: 5.5 g CP/kg MBW or 5.5 X 20.1 = 110.6 g,
• Growth component is: 0.284 g CP/g gain or 0.284 X 113.5 = 32.2 g.
• Fleece component is 4.3 g CP/kg fleece or 4.3 X 2.82 = 12.1 g.
• Total CP requirement is 110.6 + 32.2 + 12.1 = 154.9 g CP per day.

Based on our grass hay CP availability of 175 g CP/kg, our group of 2 year old females DM intake is 1.09 kg/d.

• CP intake is 175 X 1.09 = 190.8 g CP/d

We are about 36 g CP over the requirement.

Energy Requirement Calculations

Energy is characterized at several levels. First, remember that energy is derived from carbohydrates (fiber). Gross energy (GE) is the total energy derived from the diet. Digestible energy (DE) is gross energy minus fecal energy. Metabolizable energy (ME) is gross energy minus fecal, urinary and gaseous energy. Metabolizable energy is further categorized into net energy (NE) of various components; maintenance, growth and lactation are the most common used. The NRC uses ME as the maintenance.

Maintenance energy (metabolizable energy; ME) is calculated by:

• 72.9 kcal/kg MBW/d

ME can be converted to NE of maintenance by:

• NE/0.644 = ME

To the ME maintenance value we need to add the following components that apply:

Activity

• 1.25 to 1.75 x maintenance depending on level of activity.

Activity level is an objective value that the produce determines based on how active the alpacas are...how far do they travel between the feed bunk and the water trough or how much moving around they do in a day. This value becomes your new base to add the rest of the components to.

Growth

• Add 7.25 kcal ME/g of gain

Pregnancy

• 1 to 8 months . . . Same as maintenance
• 8 to 9th month . . . . Add (65.3 x Birth wt (kg) – 33.5)
• 9 to 10th month . . . Add (131.7 x Birth wt (kg) – 39.7)
• 10 to 11th month . . Add (203.5 x Birth wt (kg) + 86.1)

Lactation

• Add 946.2 kcal ME/kg of milk

Fleece

• Add 30 kcal ME/kg of yearly fleece

Example. . .

If we use our group of 2 year old females that are open, they weigh 120 pounds, they are gaining an average of 1/4 pound per day and last year's shearing they produced 6.2 pounds of fleece. What is their energy requirement?

• We made the conversions above... Body weight (BW) of 120 pounds/2.2 = 54.5 kg; gain of 1/4 pound is .25/454 = 113.5 g/d; fleece of 6.2 pounds is 6.2/2.2 = 2.82 kg
• Metabolic body weight (MBW): 54.5^0.75 = 20.1 kg
• Maintenance energy is: 72.9 kcal/kg MBW or 72.9 X 20.1 = 1465 kcal,
• Activity component is 1.50 X maintenance 1465 X 1.5 = 2198 kcal
• Growth component is: 7.25 kcal/g gain or 7.25 X 113.5 = 823 kcal.
• Fleece component is 30 kcal/kg fleece or 30 X 2.82 = 85 kcal.
• Total energy required is 2198+823+85 = 3106 kcal per day.
• You'll notice that the units are kcal; we need them to be Mcal. So, we divide the 3106 by 1000 to get 3.11 Mcal.

Based on our grass hay energy availability of 1.99 Mcal/kg and our group of 2 year old females DM intake of 1.09 kg/d.

• energy intake is 1.99 X 1.09 = 2.17 Mcal/d

We are about 1 Mcal short from the requirement. This equates to about 1/3 of the total required. Options include:

• Increase intake; this option is probably feasible since we are talking about an additional 1 pounds of feed.
• Add a supplement; a grain supplement would

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