By: Robin Day, Luna Rosa Ranch Suri Alpacas
Most alpaca owners will probably experience this at some time if they feed grain or a pelleted feed product to alpacas. And, most of us do.
Choke has haunted the alpaca industry since its early days...... although it happens a lot less now as feed manufacturers have made some changes (smaller pellets, softer kibble).
Often choke happens from gulping down food fast. Alpacas do this for two reasons: So that another alpaca doesn't get their food, or so they can eat more than their share. Slowing the eating down usually helps reduce instances of choking.
First and foremost, review how you feed. If you bring out a bucket of feed and dump it into a gutter pipe or hopper, this might be part of the problem. I highly recommend feeding in alpacas in bowls and spreading the bowls out at least 10-15 feet apart (more for boys – about 30 feet apart). See our article Alpaca Keeping Made Easy for more reasons to feed using bowls.
If there is just one greedy alpaca that runs around and snitches or eats really fast to get more, you can feed that alpaca in a small catch pen and keep it contained until the others have eaten. (Hint: it will willingly come into a small pen if you feed it FIRST). The other alpacas will then eat more slowly once they realize the greedy alpaca is no longer snitching their feed share. And the greedy alpaca eating alone in a pen will also slow down once it realizes that it’s staying in the pen until the others are done eating.
Or, if one particular alpaca chokes more than the others, try always feeding that alpaca separately in a small catch pen. It may slow down once it realizes no other alpaca will get its feed. If choke is still happening when eating solo, you can try putting smooth round 2-3" river stones in the bowl with the feed pellets. This forces the alpaca to slow down, having to pick grain pellets out from among the stones.
I have also found that some of the nationally marketed alpaca feeds have harder kibble, necessary, I guess for the shelf life sitting in stores. And the harder kibble feeds do seem to have more chokes. Some feeds also seem to have small seeds and look a lot like granola. Our herd experienced more choking incidents using one of these feeds.
It you try the above suggestions and your alpacas are still choking, consider trying another feed. Some sheep feeds milled locally might be appropriate for alpacas – consult with your vet about trying one of these.
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