Unfortunately she isn't growing as much as we'd like. We know her mom has milk and we see her nursing, and she is growing, but it isn't translating into the growth rate we should be seeing.
I read about alpaca baby food and thought we'd give it a try.
Baby food for alpaca baby
1 cup of alpaca pellets (OSU recommends Mazuri Alapaca Chews)
1 cup of alfafa pellets (regular rabbit pellets are fine!)
1/2 cup of Glucerna (no-sugar energy drink for diabetics)
2 jars of strained carrot baby food
Mix with 2-3 cups of yogurt. The alpaca pellets and alfafa pellets can be soaked in warm water before being mixed to make them softer. Blend (puree) the entire mixture in the blender until it is smooth.
OSU adds the follow instruction:
"When using this diet it is important to watch for the passage of manure. The mixture should be fairly watery to help replace water loss from diarrhea and to prevent obstruction. Use a 60 cc syringe to feed the mixture. Give about 30 ml. 4-6 times a day."
So I set out to make some. That's grain in the bowl:
I soaked the grain mixture to make it soft enough to blend:
To me this was the worst part, that mush of grain smelled yucky to me:
I put all this into the blender, along with all the other ingredients to make a puree. We put this in a jar so that we can feed it with the syringe:
I wish I could say she gobbles it up. She isn't too impressed. But I am hoping this will give her a bit of a push to grow more. She's a cutie and we want her to grow very healthy and very strong.
2 comments:
I always learn so much from your blog. We have a girl who won't eat grain. She is a year old and just won't do it. She was the only cria last year and wouldn't go into the creep feeder either. I wonder if this might help her...
It would be worth a try. I found making one batch of this slurry made a lot! We started out with 1 dose the first day, 2 the second and actually we are sticking with 2 feedings each day for this week. We'll weigh her and see if that is enough to get her gaining more. If not, I'll add a third does. The recipe does say 4 to 6x a day so we have room to add more as needed. But I don't want her to nurse less since she is still a cria. I am trying to find balance.
For your girl, it might only take a few times for her to get used to the idea of eating it, and it might make her more likely to eat grain. I'd feed the baby food to her when the others eat their grain, and put a bowl of grain out for her too. Hopefully soon she'll take a bite her own.
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