Llamas and alpacas

What the app keeps for your camelids

Every alpaca and every llama has its own record. The app assigns it a number (for example CAM-01) and you enter the name, breed, sex, birth date and a category from the app’s general list, such as fibre, meat, breeding or work/pack. You enter the breed the way you use it, Huacaya or Suri for alpacas, Q’ara or Ch’aku for llamas.

• Fibre per shearing. The app has no product called fibre: it is logged as wool, in kilos. The quick log takes it in a few seconds, for the whole farm, one animal or one group. On the free plan you see today’s total and the last 7 days; monthly and three-month totals are on the Pro plan.
• Weights. You note each animal’s weight when you take it and the app works out the average daily gain between weighings. It is useful for following the young after weaning.
• Matings and births. On the Pro plan you record the mating, the pregnancy check and the birth with the weight of the young. The likely birth date is worked out for you at 345 days; to be alerted, create a reminder for that date.
• Health. On the Pro plan you keep vaccinations, dewormings and treatments against mange or lice with product, batch, dose, vet and cost. If the product has a withdrawal period, the app counts down the days for meat.
• Accounts. The sale of a live animal, recorded on its record, is booked as income for that animal. Sales of fibre or meat and costs for shearing or pasture are recorded as income and expenses, with a category and a description, and assigned to the whole farm, to one animal or to one group. On the Pro plan, the cost on a health record is booked as an expense.

Animals, weights, fibre, meat, accounts, assigning them to an animal or a group, and up to 2 groups are on the free plan. The balance per animal and per group, breeding records, health records and monthly production totals are on the Pro plan.

Almost a year of gestation

With 345 days of gestation and a single young per birth, every open female is a lost year. That is why it pays to record each mating and each pregnancy check: you see which females keep returning and which ones give birth in the season you want, when there is grass and the frosts are milder. If you only need a date, there is the due date calculator, and the gestation guide compares the days for other species.

Shearing in figures

If you weigh each fleece at shearing and log it to that animal, you can see which animals grow the best fleece: on the Pro plan each animal’s record shows its production over the last 30 days, and its live weight stays on its record too. If you log the shearing to the whole farm or to a herd, you get the total for each shearing and, together with fibre sales and costs, what the fibre earns you over the year. As shearing happens once a year, create a reminder for the date that repeats every 12 months, and another for deworming: when you mark one done, the app sets the next.