Nutrition of domesticated South American llamas and alpacas

Intake and digestibility of different forages in Hamas compared to sheep

“…It is best correlated with total crude protein content, but non-significantly (table III). 4 [10]. It may be also that some sheep are better adapted than others to digest poor forage, as suggested by Wauters et al [ 13].…”

Digestibility and nitrogen retention in llamas and goats fed alfalfa, C3 grass, and C4 grass hays

“…There have been many questions regarding the relative digestion efficiencies of pseudoruminant llamas (three compartment stomach) and pecoran ruminants (true ruminants; four compartment stomach) such as goats and sheep (San Martin and Bryant, 1989;Warmington et al, 1989;Sponheimer et al, 2003). Some have suggested that llamas and their close relative, the alpaca, have superior digestive capabilities compared to pecoran ruminants (Hintz et al, 1973;San Martin and Bryant, 1989), while others have found no differences between these taxa (Hintz et al, 1976).…”

Skin lesions in alpacas and llamas with low zinc and copper status – a preliminary report

“…South American camelids are adapted to very low quality diets (San Martin and Bryant, 1989). In this respect, they are similar to yaks (Bos grunniens) and musk oxen (Ovibos moschatus), which also live on low quality diets (Staaland and Olesen, 1992;Li and Wiener, 1995).…”

“…These species have all been demonstrated to digest low quality forage more efficiently than domestic ruminants (llamas: Hintz et al, 1973;yaks: Richmond et al, 1977;musk oxen: Adamczewski et al, 1994). Free-ranging South American camelids (Espinoza et al, 1982;San Martin and Bryant, 1989;Karesh et al, 1998), yaks (Liu et al, 1995) and musk oxen (Blakley et al, 2000) have been shown to have low Cu, and when Zn was investigated, low Zn concentrations as well in body tissues, as compared to domestic ruminants. In captive animals, low Cu levels and Cu deficiency has been reported for South American camelids (Palmer et al, 1980;Smith, 1989;Morgan, 1992;Hastings and Gascoyne, 1992;Johnson, 1994;Bechert and Smith, 1996;Andrews and Cox, 1997;Smith et al, 1998), yaks (Clauss and Dierenfeld, 1999;Flach et al, 2003) and musk oxen (Blakley et al, 1998).…”