What is a gelding alpaca

I will never house gelded alpacas with females since, for any length of time or reason. For one thing, llamas and alpacas are receptive and fertile all year around: there is no rut, estrus, or true breeding season like in some other livestock.

Mature females have a follicular cycle that produces ripe eggs on a regular basis, and this cycle is generally only interrupted by pregnancy.

This is why owners can have spring cria, fall cria, or accidental cria at any time. In their native altiplano, alpacas are forced into a single breeding season not by their anatomy, but by the available forage.

There is only enough food to support pregnancy and lactation in the spring — severe nutritional limitations typically prevent out of season cria. Inbreeding is avoided by the dams and harem macho combining to drive young females out of the herd once they reach reproductive maturity. Mature females generally remain with the harem macho in a stable group, unless a rival ousts the breeding male. But of course, there are no wild alpacas, and so we have human intervention making out of season breeding even more difficult in South America.

Most farms or groups of owners keep the males and females separate by using human shepherds, who only bring breeding pairs together for limited times. Hand breeding is common, and pasture breeding mimics male harems, with females being introduced into breeding groups controlled by a specific macho.

Maiden females unbred females should be provided with a smaller, experienced male for their first breedings. Some vets prefer to castrate as early as possible, while the cria is following his mother around this helps him heal.

We castrate when the male becomes a nuisance, usually around months of age. It is important to do this when the weather conditions are appropriate. Animals should be up to date with their 5-in-1 vaccinations prior to castration. There is a small risk of infection after castration. Crias and shorn animals can suffer from cold, especially if the weather is wet, cold and windy.

During hot weather, they can suffer extreme heat stress if they are not shorn. It is preferable NOT to groom your alpaca, because it ruins the lock structure of the fleece. Llamas can be groomed if you and the llama enjoy it. We have compiled useful information and resources on our shearing page.

Commercially alpaca fleece is processed to make elite clothing. In quantity it can be sold to processors, or growers can have it processed and returned. Poor quality fleece is valuable as a garden mulch. Yes, just as a dog bites, a cat scratches and a horse kicks, alpacas and llamas spit — mostly at other alpacas and llamas — and rarely at people unless they feel terrified and cornered.

As they do not have upper teeth at the front, any accidental biting when trying to take a carrot from your hand is usually relatively painless. Alpacas are inclined to kick if they feel threatened fortunately they have padded feet, not hooves. Rarely does a llama kick. You will need at least two animals, and of course three or four or more is even better. Unless you have quite a few females and intend to breed, it is better not to own an intact male.

If you wish to breed, we offer a variety of stud services with both llama and alpaca stud males. This eliminates the problem of having to keep your own stud male. The general rule of thumb is that females should live separately to males, and gelded males should live separately to intact males.

This not only avoids injuries from fighting, repetitive attempts at breeding uninterested or pregnant females, and injuries to young or old animals from overly rambunctious intact males.

You will no longer have a garden. Beware of poisonous plants. You will need to hand feed them, and provide them with mental stimulation and walks. That is a complicated question, there are many variables.

What quality is the grazing? Are you prepared to provide extra feed? And may other questions. Ideally in a horse float with chest and rump bars removed. As they poo in piles it is easy to collect. The camel family, including dromedary, bactrian, guanaco, llama, vicuna, alpaca.

A dense textile, created by heat, moisture and friction or by felting needles. It is durable, warm and has many uses in clothing and craft items. Castrated male used to protect other livestock from predation. We are available to advise and help our clients with tasks as this is part of our after sales service and support. We want animals we sell to be well cared for, healthy and happy, and we want to make it easy for our clients to look after their animals.

Alpaca Magic offers this for the life of the animal you buy from us because we want our animals to be happy and healthy and our clients to enjoy owning our animals. Why: Gives us a chance to check our females and crias regularly. Whatever the season, we like our animals to have available hay. To drench an animal means to give it medicine oral or injectible to kill internal parasites worms.

Why: A worm burden can result in loss of weight, ill-thrift, diarrhoea and even death. The worm burden in one animal, promotes further pasture contamination.

The biggest concern would be that the alpacas can't get to the goat mineral. They can't have the copper that goats need. It really is best to have the vet take care of the castrating. How do you castrate? Banding won't be a good way.

You ned to cut open the testicles and pull out the testes and then cut. Be careful of the bleeding. Four Winds Ranch Loving the herd life. Lol, if you want one, get one, or two!!! I have a few llamas and they are very easy to look after! If they are halter broke, the shearing is a breeze cause you can just tie them up and they will stand there for you! For the most part they look after themselves. We eat our llamas all the time, and it really is very good!

I did some research and found many who share your view. The alpaca would NOT be able to get to the goat minerals as they are inside barns with doors that are only goat size. Unless alpaca can crawl? We don't band. We do surgical castration here. We call it slice and dice, but it's more like slice-pop-scrape-done LOL. Four Winds Ranch - These are halter broke and fairly tame as far as alpaca go.

I have done research into feed and was coming up with info that seemed pound for pound they would eat about the same as a goat. Since my goats are fairly large around and the alpaca are about the same size around I had hoped it would be roughy the same as adding two goats. Can somebody clarify this for me? Accoyo: refers to an alpaca that has been bred at Estancia Accoyo a ranch in Peru. Cria: An alpaca or any camelid less than 1 year old Crimp: The waves in huacaya alpaca fiber.

Cush: Also seen as kush. The position when the alpaca folds its legs under its body to rest or keep warm. This is also the position for a receptive female for breeding.