FEED SOURCES 

Grass
The feed value of grass varies enormously throughout the year, and also with the particular sward on a given field.  At its lushest and fastest growing it can contain up to 80% water, but it can have 15 - 30% crude protein in dry matter.  Because intakes are on a dry matter basis grass can meet the basic nutritional requirements at this stage of growth.  A useful guide is its greenness:  The greener it is, the more protein it contains.

Mature grass
As the season progresses, the protein level in grass will decline to about a 1/3 of its peak level. It also becomes drier, and the amount of nutrients locked up in plant cell walls, nearly doubles from 35 to 60%.  This means that thorough chewing, cudding and microbial digestion will be required to release them for the alpaca’s use.  Also, as the ME and CP decline as a proportion of DM, the animal must eat more in order to get the same level of nutrition.  Since they are never going to consume more than around 2 - 2.5% of their own body weight in DM, the more demanding production state animals must lose weight if not also fed something else.

Hay/Haylage
This is only as good as the sward from which it was cut and the process by which it was cured.  Hay cut from early-growth meadow grass can have 8% protein, with later-cut crops reducing accordingly. 

Evaluate your hay
Good hay should also appear green when you open the bale, and should smell sweet and almost tobacco-like.  It should not smell mouldy or musty, or be black or grey.  It’s value declines the longer it is kept, so hay kept on to a second winter will have less feed value than that in its first winter.

Alfalfa/lucerne hay
This has much better protein levels at 10 - 20%, but tends to be fragile and break up easily, causing wastage.  It is probably better fed as chaff, where it’s pre-chopped, in troughs or bowls, because it is much more expensive than meadow hay.  Clover hay has around 10% protein, but this also suffers from fragility when handled and fed.

Grain
This can have a protein level of 8 - 13% but has a much higher ME. Also, because grain is a storehouse for plant energy, it is high in readily fermentable starch.  Experience has taught us to be very careful in feeding grain to alpacas, since it seems to be very easy to overdo it, causing digestive problems ranging from acidosis to obesity.

Pulses
These are crops from the pea family and contain 25-45% protein.

Some of the minerals, such as Copper, Cobalt, Magnesium, Zinc and Selenium have been associated with deficiency disease reported in the UK.  You can compare the inclusion rates in the analyses.  Part of your research for your llama or alpaca enterprise must include finding out what successful people in your area are feeding.  Sadly, there are no hard and fast rules, because the nutritional content of forage varies from one area to another, and one pasture to another.

Premixed food supplements
E.g. Carr’s Camelid mix and Camelibra.  These are rations especially formulated to address the deficits in pasture and forage feeding.  Carr’s is a molassed, high energy mineral supplement, and Camelibra a lower energy non-molassed one.

Mineral blocks can be offered, and some owners use Euroblock from Mole Valley Farmers, which is high in Selenium.  Owners should check out their own soil, but there are low Selenium pockets in the UK.  The only difficulty with free access mineral supplements is that a few individuals will decline to take them. Vitenium is a useful and available injectable Selenium supplementation.