I am trying to figure out how much selenium my alpacas need.  Buckeye feed is 1.7 ppm and Land O Lakes is 4.0 ppm.  It seems like a big difference and I can't find any solid info on how much they really need.

I know it depends on selenium content of soil but here in Northeast Ohio (we're in Medina , OH ) I assume we don't have any in our soil.

Any insight you could provide would be much appreciated! 

Answer:

It actually is a moving target. We think that llamas need around 1 mg per 100 lbs body weight per day. A 300 lb llama would need around 3 mg. If a feed is 4.0 ppm, that translates to 4 mg of selenium in 1 kg of feed - or 4 mg in 2.2. lbs of feed. We expect that they are getting about 50% of their requirement from grass, hay etc, so if our goal is to get 1.5 mg into that animal we would feed around 1/3 lb of a 4.0 ppm diet. There is lattitude here. Certainly in Ohio , we often do NOT get 50% of the dietary need for selenium into them from grass etc. especially in the winter. So, either feed is fine depending on your selenium resources. I recommend having a selenium supplemented trace mineral salt available to them to make up any deficiencies they may need after the grain source.

David E Anderson, DVM, MS, DACVS