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Miscellaneous
Dimensions etc
the yards are built from 6 x 1 inch rough sawn timber
wherever possible posts present a rounded surface to the alpacas (hey! these are expensive animals and we don't want to break'em!)
pens are typically 10 x 10 feet (in actual fact they're two metres square but I'm old enough to remember "real" units of measure :-)
railings are spaced at 6 inches so the overall height of the sides in about 4 feet
in the race the lower gap is filled in to make it more difficult for a panicker to put a foot through
the steel gates are all six footers with no intermediate horizontals (those panicking feet again)
the race is 6 feet 6 inches long (okay it's really 2 metres!) and 25 inches wide (internal dimension)
when do we use the yards and race?
We're on a small farm with maximum of about 20 adult alpacas
In order to keep them well habituated to human contact (and for our own enjoyment :-) we bring them in for supplementary feeding each morning and evening - not strictly neccessary in our climate and pasture conditions but
we have to deal with medicating for facial eczema (a liver complaint) prevention during the summer months - FE prevention is done by feeding zinc laden pellet food so we can keep them habituated to taking it by giving them non medicated feed pellets for the rest of the year
of course all this coming and going keeps them well habituated to coming into the yards so getting them in for working sessions is not an issue
We weigh everyone once a week as a basic health management measure to defeat the stoic behaviour that sick animals can exhibit
new babies are weighed morning and night for their first month
older youngsters are generally weighed daily through to about three months
anyone that we have doubts about goes on an ad hoc weighing regime
medical procedures (injections et al) are usually done standing in the race
ultrasounds for pregnancy verification are done in the feeder pen
initial halter training is done in the side pens
we don't do toenails in the race - as we have a shearing table we are more comfortable using it for toe trimming - we've also done vet operations on the table
the shearing table doesn't fit within these yards but is set up when needed in an adjacent area and enclosed in simple portable pen structure (that lightweight kiwi approach to construction pays off for this too :-)
the crush pen
Can't make any claim that this was planned - it just happened!
We've found that we can closely confine any really difficult case in this way
this shot is taken within the pen before the feeder pen with the gate into the feeder pen being opened towards its maximum position
and "voila" once the feeder gate has been swung right round it forms with the other gate an ideal alpaca sized crush! - don't use it very often but on occasions it's sure nice to have!Previous Page Next page
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