Hay

I have been arranging deliveries of orchard grass hay for a group of alpaca ranchers in my area for the last two years.   We started out getting one truck load of about 730 bales for 10 ranches and are now up to 24 ranches needing two full truck loads.   In our group, we are very specific about the hay that we use.  We like for our hay to be mostly orchard grass with a crude protein count of between 10 to 14%.  We like for the TDN (total digestible nutrient) to be between 55 – 62%.  It is important to not be misled into believing that a 14% protein count with TDN at 45% would be ok for alpacas.  The TDN influences the forage intake and hay that tests like that was probably too mature when it was harvested and may contain more stems than leaves and will likely be wasted.   It is also important that the calcium:phosphorus be balanced at 2:1 or less.   Second cut hay is also preferred. 

Here’s my rumination about hay for alpacas….it’s expensive!  I have seen the price of hay go from $4.00 per 50-60 pound square bale to $6.50 – $7.00 per bale…and that is for coastal bermuda in our area.  Well, our alpacas are spoiled to orchard grass hay and now won’t even touch the coastal.  So, we go out of our area to find orchard grass hay and all of our alpacas thrive on it.  Of course, next we had to get the hay to our area and guess what that means….shipping costs.  It’s about 1100 miles from the supplier to our area of Texas and the latest shipping charges were $2.26 per mile -now, calculate that!  It’s expensive, but I must say, it’s worth it to have healthy alpacas.