Our 1st Farm Crisis

We suffered our first setback here on our farm. Just as things were rocking along our newest born cria Angeline suffered a major eye injury. Last Saturday evening I checked on the herd just before retiring and everything was fine. The next morning Angeline's eye was swollen and cloudy. I called the vet and he said to put triple antibiotic ointment in the eye every 3-4 hours. The eye was worse come Monday and the vet came up to take a look. He said the eye was ulcerated and possibly ruptured and that she was most likely kicked or she ran into something. He said it was "iffy" that the eye could be saved. He gave us some atropine sulfate ophthalmic ointment which relaxes muscles in the eye causing the pupil to widen (dilate). It also is used to relieve pain caused by swelling and inflammation of the eye.

This is how she looked on Monday:

We are putting the antibiotic ointment in every 3-4 hours and the dilator twice a day. It is very frustrating to see her like this as she is just over a week old and so sweet and innocent. We are hoping she pulls through this with minimal damage.

To make matters worse one of our boys, Romeo, had a case of diarrhea which is not normal and can be a serious problem.

Alpacas are ruminant animals which means they have multiple specialized stomachs which allow the animal to digest fibrous materials. The one of special interest is the rumen which is quite large and is where bacterial digestion occurs to break down material that would otherwise be indigestible. Think of ruminant digestion as sort of like a bacterial digestion factory instead of like us humans (digest chemically, with only a little help from beneficial bacteria). What this means is, it is possible to mess up the bacteria in the alpaca's gut and rumen and they will starve to death with a full stomach. The rumen is designed to house and take care of its bacteria population.

While the vet was here I had him do fecal exams on the herd. We were good except for a moderate case of the strongyle worm. This is a very common parasite of alpacas and he recommended I treat the herd with Cydectin which I did.

Romeo is now pooping beans which is what I want to see. However, he vomited twice after feeding him grain. I will suspend feeding him grain for about 10 days hoping that will clear it up. I think his system is a little out of whack and I want to give him a break from the sweet feed for a little while. He seems to be acting normal with no signs of lethargy; he's eating hay with no problem and playing with the boys as usual. I will follow up with his status in a week or so.