Quarantine...The Why and How

I'm happy to announce that May has finally made it home!  It has been 8.5 years since I've seen her, and it is almost surreal that she is back with me.  And of course she is the inspiration for this post!

I'll admit, for the first several years that we had llamas (ok, almost the whole time we've had llamas), we were terrible about quarantining new arrivals!  We always had a small herd, and not a lot of extra space, so any newcomer or someone returning from a show went right in with the herd.  The thought of that makes me cringe now!  Luckily when I set up the new farm I made sure to set up a quarantine area.  Any time a new llama comes to the farm they will go in there for at least 3 weeks.  My show string also goes in the quarantine pen for 3 weeks after each show.  When we build a new barn I plan on building yet another quarantine pen so that I have a place to put females when they come for outside breedings.

The edge between the quarantine pen and the main pasture (with the gate open).

For the past few years, it has seemed like parasites are on the rise.  I believe that is due to reporting bias...with the advent of online forums more people are discussing the issues they are having in their herds.  But the good news is that owners are becoming more proactive when it comes to preventing parasite issues on their farms.  And one of the easiest ways to do that is quarantine!

By quarantining a new llama (or one coming back from a show or other farm), you lessen the risk of spreading internal and external parasites to the rest of your herd.  Parasites are easily picked up at shows and other farms, and even during transport!  And of course the stress of being at the show/other farm/transport is enough to make an insignificant parasite load bloom into something dangerous!

Ralph and Kara at a show.

Quarantining is pretty simple...pick a well-behaved companion from your herd (if you only have one newcomer) and stick them in a secluded pen for a specified period of time.

Ralph and Duque make great quarantine companions!

I like my quarantine pen to be relatively small.  I want it to be a dry lot (aka no grass) so that parasites are more easily contained.  And of course I don't want to risk contaminating a large pasture!  My main quarantine pen is about 40' x 50', with a 10' x 20' pen in the barn.  It is big enough for my entire herd (now a whopping 6 animals!) to live in during the winter/early spring.  April and May are in this area now.  The new quarantine pen I finished building today is much smaller, but still usable.  The outside area is about 15' x 30', with a 10' x 10' pen in the barn.  I probably wouldn't use it for more than 3 animals at a time (Kara and Ralph are in there now).

The herd in the quarantine area.

The length of time that you quarantine is a bit of a grey area.  For me, it comes down to how bad I perceive the risk to be.  If I suspected that the animal would come in with a huge parasite load, I might quarantine for a month or two (and run lots of fecals during that time).  If I had a healthy animal coming from a reputable farm, I might quarantine for just a few weeks.  I quarantined Lily for 3 weeks this past spring, and plan to do the same with May.

While the animal is in quarantine, it is important to monitor their progress.  It is a good idea to run an initial fecal (I wish I had done this with Lily), so that you have an idea of what you are working with. It takes parasites awhile to increase (if they picked something up from the transport or stress caused a bloom), so you should run another fecal in 1-3 weeks.  When you run the follow-up fecal, don't forget to test the companion animal as well...they could have picked something up from the newcomer.  If you need to treat for parasites, don't forget to run another fecal 10-14 days after treatment.  Yes this will prolong the quarantine period, but you need to make sure that the treatment worked (and not introduce resistant parasites to the rest of your herd!).

A fecal slide as viewed through the microscope.

During quarantine, be sure to offer the best nutrition possible.  Nice leafy second cut hay is good, and I like to add electrolytes to their water.  You can add grain/pellets if they aren't overweight, just be sure to introduce them slowly (mixing with the feed they got at their previous farm is best).  And don't forget the minerals!  May has been snarfing them down today!  Something new that I tried with Lily was an immune booster herbal supplement.  Being a young, recently weaned cria, I wanted to help her immune system deal with the stress as much as I could.  I bought an herbal supplement from Smart Pak Equine online.  I also plan on using this supplement when we go to shows.  I think for May I'm going to offer specific herbs instead of the supplement, since she is older and can deal with the stress better.

Beet pulp, alfalfa pellets, and calf-manna are great supplements if you need to put weight on your newcomer.

Once the newcomer has been in quarantine for a few weeks, and has a clean fecal (and no external parasites), they are free to join the herd!  It is always fun to see how the rest of the herd reacts to a new animal!

Locked Up Lamas

I really felt like a broken record this winter...it seemed like every other Facebook post was something along the lines of "locking the lamas in again tonight".

Locking the lamas inside the barn at night was not something I had really ever considered doing on a regular basis.  The one exception was when we had a baby born...we would routinely shut the new mom and baby in our catch pen/creep feeder (basically just an extra 8'x12' pen in our barn) for a night or two to bond and stay out of the cold.

May and her cria Camissia, locked in the catch pen for the night.

And then we moved to NY and had the winter from he**!  It dropped below 0 degrees more times this winter than I could count, and we often had wind chills in the double negative digits!  My Midwest lamas were definitely not use to this, and they were suffering.

April laying in one of her favorite spots, out by the hay feeder.

My preferred first treatment for the cold is insulated coats.  The only lamas that I saw shivering this winter were April, Duque, and Ralph.  They all wore coats through at least half of the winter; Duque and Ralph wore theirs a bit less than April.

Duque and Ralph in their coats.  Duque has since inherited April's coat, since April got a new thicker one!

It got so cold at times though that I would see April and Duque shivering, even with their coats on!  That's when I knew I had to do more to keep them warm.

Luckily the lamas' pen is on the south side of the barn, so the wind is normally not bad.  But in the cold winter, even a heavy breeze can drop the wind chill severely.  Since April apparently doesn't like being in the barn, the only way to keep her out of the wind was to lock her (and everyone else) inside the barn.

As I've mentioned before, I put down a lot of waste hay in the barn this winter for added insulation agains the cold.  So in addition to being out of the wind, they have the benefit of laying in a nice warm bed and not the cold concrete or frozen ground outside!

Nice bed of waste hay in the barn.

My threshold for locking the entire herd inside was whenever the temperatures were below 0 (Fahrenheit), or if the windchill was in the double negative digits.  There were a couple exceptions, mostly when it was warm and rainy and then supposed to get really cold quickly.  A few times I just locked April inside (in the catch pen) with a friend (usually Kara or Ralph).

April in the catch pen (eating her dinner).

Of course April hates being locked in the barn, but it has definitely helped keep her warm this winter.

During one extreme cold spell, the lamas stayed in the barn for 2 days and 3 nights (in a row)!

I even locked them in last night, even though the temperature was just under freezing.  They had been standing out in the rain all day, and the temperature was supposed to drop to almost 0 degrees during the night.  I went back outside this morning to feed, and found 5 happy, warm, and dry lamas, even though it was still in the single digits outside!  I put coats on the 3 regulars, and gave them their freedom.  Now that they're dry they'll be fine outside tonight.

And now for a little cheering up...SPRING!

Skin Issues Revisited

About a year and a half ago, I wrote a blog post about some skin issues that 2 of my llamas were having.  I'm having issues again (1 of the same llamas, 1 different one), so I thought I would share what I learned from the first time and what I'm trying now.

In 2012, I was having trouble with Bluff and April.  Bluff had a bit of "elephant skin" (basically thick skin) under her front armpits.  I decided to treat her with a cream made from diaper cream (zinc oxide), vitamin E, and tea tree oil.  Unfortunately it didn't seem to make any difference, so I discontinued the treatment.

April had developed some bald spots on her legs.  The skin wasn't thick and crusty like Bluff's, just had no hair!  Since there was no chance of rubbing a cream on April's back legs every few days, I decided to make up a sprayable mixture of MTG (a horse skin product), vegetable oil (to soften the skin), vitamin E, and tea tree oil.  It turned out that the vegetable oil was a bad idea for summer, since it attracted flies.  The MTG is also too thick for a spray bottle, so I wasn't able to continue the treatment for very long.  Needless to say it didn't work.

Since I wasn't living on the farm for most of the past several years, I didn't have another opportunity to address April's skin issues until they moved to my new NY farm in August.  After talking to some breeders on Facebook, I decided to try spraying her legs (and Duque's) with apple cider vinegar.  I was actually good about applying this treatment (it was easy!), but after about 6 weeks I still saw no improvement so I quit.  I'm giving up on April's feet until it warms up in the spring, but am thinking about trying a new horse product (one that is designed to be sprayed) or diluted betadine.

Duque's back feet started off like April's, just looking like simple hair loss.  However, over the past month or two I noticed more dry scaly skin so I decided to start treating him again.  Luckily Duque is easier to handle than April, so I tried the skin cream I made for Bluff a second time.  I applied it every other day for 2 weeks, and saw no improvement.  The cream was applied to one back leg, and on the other I applied MTG.  The MTG didn't work either.  After more consulting, someone suggested that he may have mites and should be treated with Frontline spray.  Frontline is almost $50 at TSC, so when someone else suggested Vaseline instead I decided to try that.  I started the second treatment today, and will be applying it twice a week for 3 weeks.

Kara also has something similar to Bluff, rough spots on her front armpits and her chest.  I'm also trying Vaseline for her.

If the Vaseline doesn't do the trick in a month or so, I suppose I'll try another of the many products that are available.  NuStock is widely recommended, as is a product called Well Horse.  I'll try to report back in a month with progress!

Snow, Snow, and More Snow...

Like a good portion of the country, we got hammered with a bunch of new snow last week.  Luckily the temperatures have stayed reasonable, but none of us (the llamas nor myself) are real happy with the snow!

This is the view of the llama pasture after the snow.  There is a tiny green blob in the center...that would be Ralphie in his coat.  It is hard to tell from this picture, but the llamas aren't getting out of the barn much with all the snow.  They will walk out to the hay feeder (and sometimes to the poop pile) but that's about it!

Speaking of poop, here is my poor compost pile!  Unfortunately it didn't get started early enough in the fall to start "cooking" before it got cold, so it is pretty much frozen.  Next year should be better though!

And let me just mention, it is NOT easy getting a full wheel-barrow from the barn all the way to the compost pile!  To give you an idea of scale, this picture was taken right outside the barn door, and the compost pile is behind the two small sheds in the center of the picture.

With all the snow, the llamas are spending a lot of time in the barn.  They will go out occasionally to eat from the outside feeder, and April will sit out there for hours in the snow!  You can see that Ralph went out for a bit, but decided that it was better in the barn!

April and T were being a bit more adventurous that day, and ventured out to eat some of the new hay.

I waited too long to take this picture, but half-way through the snowfall there was an oblong cushing-llama-shaped snowless spot on the concrete here outside the barn...April must've slept outside in the snow all night!  She had about 2" of snow on her back!

This is what the pasture looks like from the inside of the barn.  I did shovel a bit of the concrete pad, to encourage the llamas to get outside.

Sometimes when it is snowy you have to get creative!  My husband didn't want to wait to take feed down to his chickens (we were heading out to ski), so he skied down the hill with the feed bag!  I'm really surprised he didn't wipe out!

Abby is the only one who enjoys the snow no matter what!  She might be starting to get annoyed though, as the snow sticks to her feet and she repeatedly stops to chew on the "snow balls" while we're out on a walk/ski.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like we're going to have any reprieve from the snow/cold in the coming week!  It is even going to get colder on Wednesday, I just really hope it doesn't last long!

Caring for the Elderly Llama (or Alpaca)

I'd been struggling the past week or so with what I should write about for my next blog post.  Then as I was outside this morning feeding April, I got my inspiration!  I've already written a post about cold-weather care, but nothing about caring for an older llama or alpaca.

Duque!

At the 2013 GALA Conference back in November, one of the vets mentioned that she likes to start "senior" care for lamas when they hit about 10 years old.  The average lifespan of a lama is 15-25 years, so that makes sense.  I've been doing "senior care" for two of my llamas for the past 8 years or so.  April is going to be 20 in the spring, and Duque will be 17.  I will give a disclaimer that caring for senior lamas can be very time consuming and expensive, but for me it is worth it!

I'm going to break the topic down into a few categories, to make it easier to follow...

Arthritis

Arthritis (or other physical/conformational issues) is fairly common in older lamas.  Just like humans, they get to the point where they are stiffer in the cold, and they are slower to get up and walk around. Dropped pasterns are also a big issue, especially for geldings (neutered males) or overweight animals.    (The lower amounts of testosterone in gelded males is thought to contribute to the breakdown of the pastern tendons.)  Unfortunately neither dropped pasterns nor arthritis can be treated, but they can be managed.

Duque's dropped front pasterns.

For dropped pasterns (and other tendon issues), there are a number of supplements that can be given.  There is an herbal supplement designed for llamas that is supposed to somewhat reverse the effects of dropped pasterns, but it didn't really work for Duque.  Plus it is a fine powder, which was impossible to get him to eat!  In regards to supplements, I have started using those formulated for horses, and giving 1/3-1/2 of the horse dose for a llama (roughly 300-350 lbs).  There are several tendon supplements for horses as well, and some come in pelleted form.

For arthritis, the common supplements are glucosamine and chondroitin (also commonly taken by humans and given to dogs).  There are also lots of joint supplements available for horses, as well as an arthritis supplement for llamas.  In severe cases, injections of glucosamine/chondroitin can be given, as well as pain meds (banamine or bute).

Duque has had dropped pasterns for several years.  He comes from a bloodline where this is common,  is a gelding (has lower testosterone than intact males), and has been overweight for most of his life.  His pasterns started dropping when he was only 5-6 years old, and thus had to be retired early from the show ring.  Now that he is almost 17 years old, he doesn't like to stand for long periods of time and he walks rather slow.  There are days that I really worry about him, but the next day he will run around the pasture with the young animals so I have to make myself stop worrying!  Duque has been on glucosamine and chondroitin supplements for horses for years.  I currently have him on a 1/2 dose of SmartFlex III Resilience Pellets.  It is hard for me to tell whether or not they are working, but I'm afraid to take him off them completely so I'm just going to keep feeding them!  The nice thing about the pellets is that they are very easy to get him to eat.

Miraculously, at the ripe old age of 20, April has still yet to show any signs of arthritis.  I'm amazed, and will consider to count my blessings in this regard!

Obesity/Overweight

It may sound a bit counter-intuitive, but obesity can be a big issue in older llamas.  They don't move around as much, they tend to get babied more (aka extra/better feed!), and the weight just packs on.  Being overweight can be just as detrimental to their health as being underweight, and it is a lot harder to fix!

The best way to get weight off a lama is exercise!  Take them for hikes if you can (gradually building up time and distance), or put them in a big pasture.  One great tip I heard was to put their hay and water at the opposite end of the pasture as the shelter, so that they had to walk back and forth frequently.

Duque going for a hike!

If exercise isn't a viable option (such as an old llama with bad pasterns or arthritis), you will have to cut their feed.  A normal lama needs 2-3% of its body weight in roughage (grass/hay) daily, but if you have an overweight animal they can survive on 1-1.5%.  Personally I think the key is to reduce both the amount and the quality of the hay they are given.  I prefer to give 1.5-2% of their body weight in a first cut, stemmy hay (with low protein- under 10%).  Eliminate grain, just offer free choice minerals and fresh water.  Make them clean up all their hay before you feed more.  Obviously this is a lot easier to do in the winter when they aren't on pasture, but it can also be done during warm weather.  You can dry-lot the obese animal (put on a pasture with little to no grass), or lock them in a stall and only give them a few hours outside to graze.  It may sound mean, but getting the weight off is imperative to their health!

Duque (and several of my younger llamas) has battled obesity for most of his life.  My mom really liked to feed the lamas grain every day, whether they needed it or not.  At his worst, Duque got up to about 400lbs.  After moving to the new farm in August, he has since lost about 20 pounds by limiting his grazing and feeding low-protein hay.  Now at a slim 330 lbs, he is where he should be!  I'm back to feeding him a bit of grain every day so that he doesn't lose more weight.

Duque during his "fat" years.

Underweight

After having April on my farm for almost 14 years now, I feel like I'm an expert when it comes to feeding underweight lamas!  April has always been really thin (I think she just has a really quick metabolism), and it has been a challenge to keep her at a good weight, especially now that she is quite old.

The only way to put weight on a thin lama is feed, feed, FEED!  And you also need to look at how you are feeding: a lot of thin lamas are at the bottom of the pecking order within the herd, so they are often the last to eat.  It is imperative to separate any thin lama while they eat, so that they aren't bullied.

April eating in her pen.

There are a ton of different feeds that you can give a thin lama to encourage weight gain.  The foundation of your feeding program for an underweight animal is a high quality hay, preferably with a bit of alfalfa.  I would aim for something with at least 14% protein if you can.  Feed this high quality hay free-choice, so that they can eat as much as they wish.  The second most important feed to give is a good llama/alpaca supplement (also referred to as grain or pellets).  Again you want something with high protein.  Follow the feeding guidelines for the supplement, but you could feed an extra 0.5-1.5lbs of the supplement daily.

Next comes the long list of add-ins...  My favorite is Calf-Manna, a high protein supplement designed for a variety of livestock.  Our old vet said we could safely feed 2lbs of Calf-Manna daily without having to worry about copper toxicity.  April has been on at least 1lb daily for the past 10 or so years, and she seems just fine!  Something new that my new vet recommended was rice or wheat bran.  It is high in protein and fat.  It comes in many forms, commonly oil and pellets.  I chose to give April the pellets (manufactured by Manna Pro), since I didn't think she would eat the oil.  I'm giving her 1/3 of the horse dose.  After doing a bit more research this fall, I decided to start April on alfalfa pellets and beet pulp.  Both are supposed to be great for weight gain.  Due to a recent choking episode, I chose to soak the pellet mixture in water to re-hydrate them before feeding.  It took a few days, but she eventually learned to eat them.  And now that it is cold I soak them in boiling water to make a warm mash.  It is hard to measure the pellets since they expand after soaking, but I figure she gets about 1/2lb of a 50:50 mix daily.  I also recently decided to try adding a little bit of oil to the mash mixture...I had recommendations for corn, soybean, and canola oil.  I've read that you can feed up to 1/4c daily, but work up to that amount slowly.  April got 1T today (day 1 of adding it in).

Alfalfa pellet/beet pulp mix, before re-hydrating.

There are still more things that you can feed underweight lamas!  Some people swear by corn or oats, but I don't like that they appear to pass undigested.  I've heard recommendations for Equine Senior (a horse feed), but it has much higher copper than Calf-Manna.  I've also heard a lot about Chaffaye (sp?), which I believe is shredded hay with molasses.  I just can't find any local!

Cold/Heat

A lot of older lamas have issues with the cold and heat.  Luckily my 2 do fine in the heat, but they both get very cold in the winter.  Now they both have insulated coats to wear, and I put them on at the first sign of shivering.  April will end up wearing hers most of the winter, while Duque can tolerate a bit more cold.

April in her awesome coat!

When it comes to heat intolerance, there are a few simple tricks to keep them cool.  Shearing is a must, as is fresh cold water.  Fans and shade are also important.  If it gets really hot I like to hose their bellies off to cool them down.

There are also a few tricks for cold intolerance.  Lots of good food (hay generates more body heat as it digests than pellet/grain supplements), shelter from the wind, deep hay/straw bedding to lay on, fresh warm water, and blanketing if necessary are just a few suggestions.  For more in-depth explanations, see my previous post.

Duque in his less than awesome coat (but it still keeps him warmer than without it!).

Teeth

Just like horses (and any animal really), a lama's teeth can decline rapidly with old age, and us owners usually have no idea!  I only recently discovered that April has no front teeth, so I can only imagine what her molars look like!  I've definitely started to realize the importance of having a vet (or doing it yourself, if your lama will allow it!) check out the lama's teeth every year or so.  Uneven chewing can cause sharp points, which can be easily filed down.  Weight loss in older lamas is often caused by bad teeth.  If you've ever seen small piles of half-chewed hay around your feeders, you most definitely have an animal with teeth issues.  The front teeth can also get too long, interfering with grazing.

Duque and his long teeth.  Luckily they aren't quite long enough to warrant trimming.

Parasites

Older animals are more susceptible to parasite infections than younger animals, and it will usually take them longer to recover after treatment.  I would pay special attention to doing regular fecals on older lamas, and would probably treat if they had a lower level than a young adult did.  I'm also starting to think that regular probiotic supplementation would be a good idea, to support the good bacteria in the gut.

View through the microscope of a fecal exam.  In the center (grey spot) is a nematodirus egg.

Conclusions

As I mentioned before, feeding and caring for an older lama is neither cheap nor easy.  I spend longer waiting for April to eat her food (in a separate pen) than it takes me to clean the entire barn and pasture each day.  I spend more on Duque's tendon/arthritis meds and 5 different types of feed for April than I do buying hay and grain for the entire group of 5 lamas!  But they have given me a lot of pleasure and joy over the years, so I feel like it is the least I can do for them.  I am realistic though, and if either one gets to the point where they are suffering, I will do the humane thing and let them go.  As much as I hate to think about it, Duque will certainly go lame in the next few years, so I know that hard decision is waiting for me.  Luckily I think April will be around for a good long while!

April!

Winter Weather Prep

After spending a few harrowing days in the past few weeks worrying about how the lamas would deal with the cold, I decided that I would write up some of what I learned.  So here goes…

Duque in his coat.

Back in Indiana, we never seriously worried about the cold.  We did the usual preparations: rubber mats over the cement floors, heated water buckets, extra hay and grain, and coats for those who needed them (mostly April and crias).  It never got terribly cold for more than a day or two, so we didn't have to worry about it too much.

A cold snowy day in Indiana.

Now that the animals are in New York, it is a WHOLE different ball game!  It is only the first week of December, and already it has gotten below 20*F more than 10 nights.  It even got down to 1*F last week!  I was pretty panicked the first few nights it got really cold, but I've since done a lot of research, tweaked a few things about our barn and feeding practices, and now feel much more prepared for the inevitable cold weather.  To make things a bit easier to follow, I will break down the suggestions that I found into a few categories.

Our first big snowfall in New York.

Barn

As I mentioned before, there are a few basic things that we already were doing in our barn.  We always have rubbed mats down in our barn, and they do a great job to insulate the animals from the cold concrete.  Heated water buckets are also a must in the winter, even if the weather gets just below freezing.

Heated water bucket.

The first really easy thing to adjust for extreme cold is adding a layer of bedding (straw is preferable, but hay works in areas like ours where straw is really hard to find).  I always hated putting bedding down on the barn floor because it makes a huge mess, but honestly that is inevitable in the winter!  My geldings insist on potty-ing in the barn when it gets cold, but they have been limiting that to one half of the barn, so I spread some stemmy hay on the OTHER half of the barn (where I assume that they are sleeping).  That way I don't have to clean up yucky hay, and I don't waste as much.

Stemmy hay on the floor of the barn.

Another thing that we did back in Indiana (though for a very different reason) was putting a tarp up over the huge door opening.  Our old barn had a very tall door (at least 12-15' tall), so my dad rigged a tarp that covered most of it (it came down to about 6' high).  It was mostly to keep birds out of the barn, but it did help with the wind.  In our new barn, the door is only 8' tall, and is luckily located on the south end of the barn, but some days we were still getting a lot of wind coming in the barn.  So I set up a smaller version of the tarp door, to cover the top 4' of the door.  I folded a 6'x8' tarp in half so it was 4'x6'.  Using screws and large washers, I screwed through the metal rings on the tarp to attach it to the top of the door frame.  I then used bungee cords to keep the bottom corners of the tarp from flapping (I used the bungee cords to attach the tarp to various parts of the barn door), and threw a couple scrap pieces of wood in the fold of the tarp to weigh it down.  It gets a bit annoying to duck every time I walk out the door, but it does seem to help with the wind.

Tarp door.

I've read that a lot of people simply lock their animals inside the barn when it gets cold.  I've really tried to avoid that so far (and will continue to do so), but it is certainly a good option in some circumstances. If it ever gets below 0*F, or if one of the animals is shivering despite my attempts to get them warm, I would definitely lock them in the barn.

Feeding

Feeding practices can also really help animals deal with the cold.  Since I don't have any breeding animals currently, only April gets a grain supplement on a daily basis.  However, I've decided that whenever the forecast says it will get below 25*F at night, I'm going to feed everyone 1c of llama pellets that afternoon/evening.  If it is going to get below 15*F, I will add 1c beet pulp.  I've also added beet pulp (as much as she will eat) to April's daily ration for the winter.  (Note: Beet pulp should be soaked thoroughly in water to allow for expansion before feeding.)  For really cold nights (below 15*F), I've also been mixing in a bit of alfalfa hay with the regular grass hay.  April won't eat it (I got it to put weight on her), so everyone else might as well benefit!

Beet pulp (brown) and alfalfa pellets (green) before soaking.

Beet pulp and alfalfa pellets after soaking.  I also mixed in a little calf manna to entice April.

A lot of people suggest feeding cracked corn during cold temperatures, but I personally hate feeding corn to my lamas!  I used to feed it as part of a weight gain mixture, but the animals never seemed to digest it, so I stopped.  From what I've heard beet pulp is also good to raise their internal body temperature (as it is digested).

Of course I always stuff the hay feeders whenever it gets cold.  We have one big hay feeder outside and one big one inside, but I've started leaving the big bucket feeders in the barn on cold nights.  I think having more feeders with hay will encourage more of the lamas to stay in the barn, which should keep them warmer.  For 5 lamas, I end up with 4 feeders inside the barn and 1 outside.  When it gets nice during the day I move the bucket feeders outside to encourage them to get some fresh air!

April and one of the bucket feeders.

Coats

For some animals (like April), coats are a necessity for getting through any winter.  I've discovered that April starts shivering when it hits about 25*F, so that is my threshold for putting her coat on.  Her coat came from Llama Hardware- it is by far the best one I've ever purchased!  Duque gets his coat when it hits about 20*F- his came from Useful Lama Items.  It isn't nearly as nice (it slides around as he wears it), but it works.  Since moving Ralph has become the next one to shiver, so he got to wear a yearling llama coat (also from Useful Lama Items) one night last week.  He looked so cute!  I know a lot of alpaca people use human vests as coats.  Horse/foal blankets can also work, but they don't fit as well in my opinion.

Ralph and April in their coats.

April in her first coat, a foal blanket.  It didn't fit very well...

It is important to remember that you should never coat a wet llama (dry them first!), and not to leave coats on if it gets too warm (this will also vary by lama).  I also like to take them off if rain is in the forecast, as most are not really waterproof.

For the recent extreme cold temperatures, I went out and bought old wool sweaters at a local thrift shop.  I cut them up and sewed them back together to make coat liners.  Wool blankets (or even fleece blankets) would also work great!

Patchwork wool coat liner.

So there you have it…a few ideas on how to keep your lamas warm this winter!  If you have any other tips that I didn't mention please share them!

Poisonous Plants!

Not a lot going on at the farm...it has been raining cats and dogs for the past week or so!  The bottom field here is pretty much under water, and the rivers are way over their banks.

To kill time and fill space, I thought I'd touch on poisonous plants.  Unfortunately the new pasture area has a few poisonous plants that we'll have to deal with.

The biggest issue are cherry trees.  Any type of cherry tree is poisonous to llamas (and alpacas, and most livestock).  The bark is poisonous at any time, and the leaves are poisonous when they are wilted (such as when a branch breaks off in a storm).  Surprisingly the leaves that fall naturally in the fall aren't poisonous!  In cherry trees, the poisonous agent is cyanide, which the leaves produce when they are "stressed".  Unfortunately for us, most of the cherry trees adjacent to the pasture are ones that can't be cut, due to various reasons (part are on a neighbor's property, and part are shelter for cultivated bees).  So we are fencing the trees out of the pasture area, and will have to be diligent about fallen branches.

Cherry tree leaves.

Mature cherry tree bark.

Another poisonous plant that I recently found is buttercup.  Luckily, it seems like buttercup is usually avoided by camelids, and it is also much less toxic than many other plants.  So for the time being I'm just going to mow the areas with buttercup, in attempt to kill it off naturally.

Buttercup flower and leaf (leaf is the big one bottom center).

There is also a lot of burdock in the pasture, but the poisonous part of that plant is the seed, which is likely to be avoided by any smart grazing animal!

I have seen a lot of milkweed in other parts of the property, but nothing seems to be growing in the pasture.

So that's a little bit about the poisonous plants that I'll have to deal with here on my New York farm.  If you want a more comprehensive list of poisonous plants for camelids, I suggest this site: http://www.c-r-alpacas.com/Alpaca%20Tips/plants_that_are_poisonous_to_alp.htm.