Nitrate Toxicity in Alpacas

Is Your Herd Safe? As many of you know, my alpaca herd was exposed to chronic nitrate toxicity. Chronic nitrate exposure is 100% preventable. Twice I had attended lectures by Dr. Pat Long where he counseled the audience to test their hay. I had attended a lecture where Dr. Norm Evans advised that we test our hay. The emphasis of these lectures was in regard to nutrition, crude protein, calcium and phosphorous balance, etc..

As you read this keep in mind the degree of future risk that you are willing to take in your feeding program.

While researching hay and nitrate I asked many alpaca breeders how they bought their hay and did they test it. One breeder had their hay tested for one year and not the following year. The following is how the rest of us bought our hay:

• Another breeder recommended the source.
• One bought from the same source for 12 years.
• One was going to buy from the place Sally did, because Sally fed her alpacas on the way to work and you know how nice she dresses, that is some clean hay.
• Some trust their hay broker and some trust the feed store.
• Some believed that testing would not reveal toxic nitrate anyway, that it would only reveal nutrition.

Nitrate and nutrition are not revealed by appearance. There is no nutritional value in nitrate for mammals and it can only be tolerated at very low concentrations.

Symptoms from nitrate appear at 1,500 ppm, the State of California recommends that pregnant ruminants do not have more then 2,000 ppm. The Georgia dairy industry cautions that not more then 1,500 ppm for the adult cows and that the calves not have more then 700 ppm. So what limits do we want for alpacas? From my experience I say never more then 500 ppm.

Buying hay by appearance is no longer acceptable. We must test our hay for nitrate before we test for nutrition. If you have nitrate you do not have nutrition.

We have all been buying our hay on trust. I bought from a recommended source, I was given a copy of a hay test where his hay tested great. In hind sight there was not a reading for nitrate on the test. I have since learned that if you have nitrate in your hay supplements and water, then all of the nutrition is greatly diminished. You do not have a nutrition program that you think you are feeding. You can be going out everyday thinking that you are feeding the best and your animals will be suffering from malnutrition.