appropriate age

[SAMSTAD]

How young can you separate a cria from it's mom?
We have 2 males that are 6 months old,still nurse a little;
The other male is 4 months old and nurses more often
All crias are robustly healthy
The problem is that their shed will be too crowded for Winter with all the other female alpacas
We need to proportion our alpacas better in the other sheds for Winter
We want to move the older crias in with the male alpacas, There already are 1year old males in this shed and they are happy with the older males.
We want to leave the youngest cria with his mom in the same shed for Winter.

Also, should I hay the male shed starting now to augment cria nutrition even though we still have orchard grass?I always put hay in the other shed for the moms and 3 crias .

Perplexed Patricia

[Marty McGee Bennett]

I don't know that you are asking exactly the question I am going to answer but you can separate youngsters and many people do... much sooner than is optimum for their behavioral well being. I like to leave young animals with their moms for longer than many people advocate. In fact ideally I prefer that the mothers do most of the weaning. If you leave the babies with mom until they are 8-9 months old then the mothers wean the babies and separation is very easy for both mother and baby. If a weanling male is very pesky trying to breed other weanlings or open females I might take him out earlier say at 6 months or so. The fact that they are still nursing is really kind of irrelevant young animals will nurse indefinitely almost if their mothers will let them and if the female is not bred back they will usually allow a baby to nurse until they are over a year old. The arrival of the next baby is what triggers the mother to wean a baby not the age of the baby that is nursing. I often leave female babies with the mothers and opt not to do any separation at all letting the mothers do the job completely.
Weaning males too early can lead to behavioral issues and so here is what I would recommend. Wait until your youngest male is 6 months old and then move all three at the same time into the other pasture. If you take the two older males away your remaining male will suffer their loss no one to play with and you may see some inappropriate interactions with other females or humans. I would recommend against it. Leaving all of the young males in with the females will solve the nutritional issue too. As far as access to the shed... are these suris? And are you in a very cold climate?

[SAMSTAD]

Thanks Marty !
We have huacaya alpacas.We will follow your advice. Today I will move the 2 older male crias back to the pasture that has their younger brother. Ever since we separated the 3 of them the 2 older ones won't move from the pasture fence .They miss their little brother!We will move all 3 crias in the Spring.

Not so perplexed Patricia

[Marty McGee Bennett]

Of good! Happy to help and I am glad that perplexed is now placated : )
I think you will have happier animals all around.