I agree with Heather.
I just lost my horse last week due to a perforated ulcer.
Horses get too much corn in their feed as well as other animals.
I don't feed my goats any feed, just hay.
As I mentioned before, I do use beet pulp, mixed with small, amounts of Poulin alpaca feed ( low in corn ) mixed with hot water. The pulp is not used as extra fiber, merely as a "holder" of water. The water increases bowel mobility in order to move the dry stuffs along. Fiber isn't worth a lick unless water is there to increase motility. That's all. And to make myself clear, I only feed small quanties, once a day. That's it, no treats, no extras.
Once the pastures begin to grow, they get nothing but hay and pasture, even during lactation ( unless there's an issue of weight loss.)
I've got 27 alpacas and I barely use a 50lb bag of feed in two months... A bag of pulp lasts me almost six months and mice don't eat it.
No allergies noted.
Simpler IS better.
Dede Crout
Dragonfly Alapcas LLC
Marydel, MD
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
From: Heather Zeleny <alpacatalk@gmail.com>
Sender: AlpacaTalk@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 09:33:11 -0800
To: <AlpacaTalk@yahoogroups.com>
ReplyTo: AlpacaTalk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [AlpacaTalk] RE:corn
Dr Chris Cebra at Oregon State has been lecturing for years about the problems of feeding corn to livestock, especially camelids. We lost a color champion solid dark rose grey female to a perforated ulcer on her first birthday when we fed the locally made alpaca pellet, that was fed by a large number of farms in the region. The corn and other mystery "grain by-products" or "agricultural by-products" are just not good food for alpacas. Actually not good food for any livestock.
After this death occurred, my mom had a custom feed made based on alfalfa, with only enough grain to act as a binder to keep the pellet form.
Yes, people will tell you that all of those grain products must be fine feed, otherwise why would they feed it? Well, cattle only get grain in the feed lots during the last month or so before slaughter. And while they are in those feed lots, they are quite sick and need to be dosed with antibiotics to keep them alive until slaughter.
I have seen many studies showing this by-product or that, are quality animal feeds. I have even seen papers saying that poultry litter is excellent livestock feed.
This topic has been discussed at length here and other discussion groups.
One more quick point regarding beet pulp, I don't think it's necessary to feed it for the purpose of adding fiber to the diet, hay itself is really chock full of fiber. And I have read that many alpacas are allergic to it. And certainly the product treated with molasses is not advised at all.
Simpler is better. If we did not have our custom feed, we would feed nothing but our 2nd cut orchard grass hay with free choice Stillwater 104 mineral/vitamin mix, and some dairy grade alfalfa, no more than 1 lb per head per day.
Heather
Heather Zeleny
White Lotus Alpacas
Oregon
Holistic Farm and Elite Fleece
http://www.facebook.com/White.Lotus.Alpacas
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