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Record Keeping

Record keeping is one of the most important things that you do that concerns keeping your alpaca. You should keep very detailed records on all aspects of your alpaca farming to assist in:

Financial Reporting
Health Diagnosis
Herd Genetics
Breeding Programs
Programming Health and Husbandry Tasks
Selling Your Alpaca
Showing Your Alpaca
Training Your Alpaca

Records can be kept either manually or on computer (which usually necessitates manual recording anyway) and can be as complex or as simple as you like.

This section will suggest the minimum information that you should record. It won’t, however, deal with the financial reporting information that is required for preparing financial accounts or taxation returns.
 

Basic Alpaca Details


The basic information pertaining to each alpaca that should be kept includes:
Name
IAR Tag
Plastic Tag (if tagged, the Identity year and number recorded on the registry)
Date of Birth
Sex
Colour Sire and Dam
Type (huacaya or suri)
Distinguishing Features 
Date they came on Farm
Date they left the Farm

Additional Details for Breeding Females


Additional detail that should be recorded for breeding females includes:
Details for Males Used for Mating
Breeding Mating Dates
Females Spit off Dates
Scanning or Pregnancy Testing Dates and Results
Details of Cria Born (date, sex, name, birth weight, colour, quality
assessment)
Any special comments on births, especially where assistance has
been required
Any additional feeding supplements required either for the female or cria
Date Cria Weaned
Any special comments on loss of pregnancy

Additional Detail for cria


Additional detail that should be recorded for cria includes:
Birth Weight
Weaning Date
Weaning Weight
Any special comments on births, especially where assistance has been required
Any additional supplements required

Records of Health Procedures


Recording of all health procedures or health observations is very critical in assisting your veterinarian to make diagnosis and treatment recommendations. You should record:
Type of health procedure 
Type of medication given 
Amount of medication given
Date of health procedure or observation
Date medication next due where treatment is ongoing, e.g. date due for worming or vaccinating
Notes about any health procedure, observation or condition 

Shearing Details and Fleece Testing Results


Shearing details are important keep in order to assess the quality of your alpaca and are required if you are wanting to enter shows:
Date of shearing
Fleece weight
Blanket weight
Average Micron
Coefficient of Variation
Standard Deviation
Fleece Length

Training Details


If you are serious about training your alpaca you should also record brief details about all training sessions to help you learn what works and what doesn’t work in different situations. It will also help if you seek professional assistance with your alpaca training to have an accurate record of what you have already tried.

Show Results


Name of Show
Date of Show
Placing
Class Type (eg Junior Female Dark Fawn)
Number of Entries
Judges Comments