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.

What is nitrate and how does it get in the hay, supplement and water?
Nitrate is required by all plants to grow. As plants grow they take the nitrate from the soil and use it to make protein. How excess nitrate accumulates in our forage and pastures is by over fertilization, any weather change that stops the plant from growing and converting the nitrate to protein, such as hail, frost, sudden drops in temperature, four or more consecutive gray days, drought (drought can be created by irregular watering of pastures and fields). Plants remain toxic for up to five days after a drought. What the farmer can control is the amount of fertilization, the timing of the harvest and the height of the cut. The rest is controlled by nature.

Nitrate gets in ground water by run off and it gets in the supplement by the use of high nitrate hay.

It has been a year since nitrate was removed from my feeding program and all the symptoms have not healed in my herd. My herd experienced, tetany, ataxia, foaming urine, excessive thirst (three gallons a day), edema, failure to impregnate, first trimester absorbtion, angular limb deformities, rickets, photosensitivity, delayed milk production, estrus ceased, injection site abscesses, failure to heal and sand colic in the entire adult herd, belligerence, anemia, hypothyroid and hyposelemium. I have researched these symptoms and have linked them all to nitrate exposure.

This chronic nitrate exposure happened to two species, alpacas and cows on four farms. The same symptoms appeared in the cows and alpacas. The cows had a higher level of nitrate and suffered late term abortions, calves dying in the birth canal, a calf born with cornea ulcers, one alpaca died from kidney failure, one died from sand colic. One died from a broken back, due to the condition of belligerence in the herd. One alpaca lost the tip of his tale from a skin condition and lack of oxygen caused by the nitrate. All of the crias born last year had skin damage on their noses, all crias had angular limb deformity when born and not all healed, one was stunted.

So now I ask you, what is the degree of risk that you are willing to take with your herd? Learn where your hay is grown, test for nitrate before you buy, then test for nutrition. Remember to always feed safe and that if you have nitrate you do not have the nutrition program that you think you do. Always feed safe by testing for nitrate in you hay and pastures. This test will cost you less the $20. Not testing can cost you your entire herd.