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Pictured: Top Stud
ILR Alpine Fiber's Brutus
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Southern Alpacas News
We provide a steady stream of news and
information of value to many of our customers
and visitors.
Bookmark this news page and return often to
see our updates.
Below you'll find
Seasonal Hints,
for alpaca
work to be done now.
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Want to receive our occasional email newsletter ?
You can do so here by typing in your email, and clicking GO. |
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Alpacas Autumn Newsletter 2009 |
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Autumn is here and it is time to "winter-ise" the herd.
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Wintering Alpacas
 Alpacas
in their woolly winter coats can get thin without
you seeing it, so over winter do regularly get hands on
your alpacas and "body score" them.
Get your hands on
your alpaca over the backbone, near the last ribs, just
above and behind the front legs. Feel the backbone
between fingers and thumb. Have a look at our website
articles section to interpret
what you feel.
Winter feed conditions may mean your alpacas
are looking for extra food. Supplement the grass with meadow hay, or lucerne hay or chaff which is higher in protein.
There are a wide range of garden plants that alpacas
can eat. We give them the last of the poplar and willow
leaves, and evergreen trees like acacia, hebes, tree
lucerne, photinea or red robin bush and karamu coprosma.
These are all alpaca favourites, and can be grown as
sheltering hedges, and trimmed regularly for fodder.
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Buying Alpaca Fibre
We are looking for clean raw alpaca
fleeces, in black and all shades of grey. They need to be under 25
micron and at least 75 mm long. We buy the blanket, and it has to be picked
clean. No vegetation, or strong guard hair, or short fibres.
Contact us if you have such fleeces available.
Masterweave make some great woven
throws and blankets, which we stock, and these have been popular items. They
are made from entirely NZ grown alpaca, processed here in NZ, in natural alpaca
colours.
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Alpacas for Sale
We always
have
alpacas for sale and our wide choice of females
includes herd starters at the lower end of the price scale, to show quality
girls.
We also have
export quality females and stud males.
If you are after alpacas with fine fibre, we
have them. Our own bred alpacas, even our wethers, fall in the 16-18 micron
range, with some far lower. The future lies in fine fibre for alpaca.
We offer a full range of services
to do with alpacas. We can assist you in getting started in
alpacas and in growing your herd. We can inspect your property and offer advice
on farm set-up. We provide after-sales service and local support,
including seminars for you to learn more about alpacas. Our studs travel around
New Zealand for matings - and also service our export females, so we have cria
being born around the world. |
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The annual Alpaca Conference is being held in Christchurch
this year. It will be at Lincoln University from 26th to 28th June. Contact
the NZ Alpaca Association to register for this event. Our farm is close by, so
contact us to arrange a visit.
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Autumn is here. We do our pre
winter health checks about now. Inoculations, body scoring, drenching if
necessary, toes, teeth, etc. etc.
Keep a close eye on your alpacas, but particularly get your hands on them
regularly, and do a "body score" to check their condition.
Older alpacas
and nursing dams can easily lose condition in winter, and fibre hides it from
view.
Their woolly winter coats can hide the fact that they are skinny underneath.
Have a look at our newsletter above and the articles webpage on body
scoring
It is time to consider vitamin D supplementation (in the form of
ADE injections) for younger and darker coloured animals. We inject all our cria
and some of our teenagers in late April, late June, and again in August if it
remains overcast. We also specially watch for that “sluggish looking” cria that
may need an extra dose in between. In the extreme, a Coforta will also help
perk up a seemingly D deficient cria.
Make sure you have stocks of winter feed - hay, lucerne, chaff, lactating mix,
pea vine, alpaca pellets.
There are garden
plants that you can feed your alpacas as well - see our autumn newsletter above.
And remember that hay fed alpacas have a far higher water requirement
than grass eaters
Lower pecking order alpacas get less feed. Get hands on and move those suffering
into feed paddocks or where supplementation is available and competition is
less.
Also consider
earlier weaning of cria, if the cria is thriving and the dam is suffering. It is
perfectly OK to wean at 4 months in these circumstances.
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