DMAR Alpaca and Maremma Blog

Update on Michelle Rose’s Valley Fever:

 This is Michelle Rose. She is a proven female with 4 offspring on the ground. She is a wonderful mother who always has plenty of milk for her crias. In March 2009 I took Michelle to the vet with symptoms of weight loss, fiber stress breaks, and coughing. Blood tests came back showing that Michelle had valley fever which is a fungus that comes out of the dirt in Southwestern states.

Michelle took very ill combating a secondary bacteria that was giving her a respiratory infection. We had her on ketoconazole for the valley fever as well as an antibotic for the respiratory infection. Michelle continued to lose weight and got weaker and more depressed. The vet didn’t have high hopes for her as Michelle’s lymph nodes were the size of golf balls. The vet told me she had only seen this size lymph nodes on dead alpacas.

We switched Michelle’s medication to fluconazole but that med proved to be worthless for her. Michelle dropped 15 lbs in one week alone and her lowest weight was a very scary 133 lbs. Michelle’s normal weight was anywhere from 165 – 175 lbs. We had to remove Michelle’s 4 month old cria and wean him early as Michelle continued to nurse and lose even more weight.

At one point in time Michelle was literally only skin and bones. She could barely walk since she had no meat between her legs separating them. She would try to walk and could only stumble over her own legs. Her eating was maybe a mouthful or two of food per day. I called the vet and she told me to bring her in to euthanize her as Michelle was starving to death. Heartbroken I called the insurance company who advised that the vet needed to see Michelle one more time before euthanizing as the vet hadn’t seen Michelle in three weeks. I called Tom and told him I didn’t think she would make it until the end of the day. At this time she was laying completely on her side and breathing irradically.

I went into the house and got a shot of banamine. I wanted to try to make Michelle as comfortable as possible. I also wanted to move her back into her stall so her cria wouldn’t see her die. To my surprise after the shot Michelle got on her feet and walked back into her stall where she started to eat. This was not just a mouthful or two of food but she ate like she knew this was her last chance to survive.

I took Michelle to the vet the next morning and in transit she ate some food. When the vet saw her she said she could not consciously advise to put her down as Michelle was alert, standing, and eating. We switched Michelle back to ketoconazole and continued with the antiotics. Michelle started to improve slowly. Around December we took Michelle off the antibotics as she no longer had a respiratory infection and the med wasn’t making a difference in her lymph node size.

 Here is Michelle 16 months later. She weighs 170 lbs and if you notice she actually has meat between her legs so she no longer stumbles around. As a matter of fact she runs and jumps with all the other females. Her coat is beautiful again with no stress breaks and just looks healthy.

In April of this year after taking Michelle’s blood we learned her valley fever titer was 1:32 which is a huge improvement over her initial 1:256; however, Michelle’s white blood count continued to be over double the normal count. The vet switched her to itraconazole.

Now we are on this med for the past 4 months. Michelle’s lymph nodes have made a drastic change in size. On the left side of her neck it is probably the size of a marble and the right side is slightly larger but definitely reduced in size. In a couple of weeks I will take Michelle back to the vet to get retested to see where we stand.

We’ve stuck by Michelle all this time. If she wanted to live then we were going to help her. Our goal is to see Michelle get pregnant and have another cria but this won’t happen unless she can prove to be healthy enough to do so. We can wait and so far she is proving she wants to live!

You can read more on Michelle’s past valley fever ordeal by clicking on the health category and the alpaca article menu from the right side of this blog.

What wouldn’t I do for my alpacas? That’s a good question as I find myself doing more and more for them every day.

  This is our full Peruvian MRG stud, Snowmass Incan Emperor. We currently have 6 offspring on the ground ourselves from him. One male is a 2x Reserve Color Champ, and another male is a 2x blue ribbon winner. The last two crias, DMAR Dolce and DMAR Dior, are turning out to be some nice contenders in the upcoming show season starting in the fall. With this in mind I used Incan on Shasta who is currently confirmed pregnant. Because I loved the way Dolce and Dior have turned out I was going to use Incan again on the mothers, Alexis and Electra.

Last week sometime I tried to use Incan. I noticed him getting down and then back up again. He was quite frustrated and I thought it was because of me since I kept reaching in to move the tail out of the way. After 5 minutes I was more frustrated than Incan and decided to put him back with the boys. A couple of days later I tried to breed him and the same thing was happening. This time I looked closer and noticed that he was not extending his penis and semen was dripping out from inside the shaft. Ok, now I understood why he was so frustrated. Incan obviously wanted to breed, but something was wrong.

I made an appt. for him to see the vet, but it would have to wait a couple of days as it was the weekend. In observing Incan I noticed his appetite was good and he didn’t seem to have any problems urinating.

Monday morning he was the first off the trailer and my vet began to palpate his shaft and penis. The doctor thought the front of his shaft was a bit swollen, however, she did ask me to go home and palpate other males to see if this was normal. She advised she hasn’t palpated that many males to know the difference.

After I explained what I noticed with Incan she then went on to snake (I use snake for a lack of a better word) the penis out of the shaft. In doing so she quickly noticed the side of the tip was swollen and had two small cuts on it. Ouch! She had me look at it while her assistant went to get Panalog cream. She applied the cream to the penis directly and then proceeded to stick the tube up the opening of the shaft to apply more panalog.

Directions for me was to go home and apply panalog up the shaft for one week once per day. I am also to give Naxcel once a day and banamine 2x/day. I’m sure Incan is thankful for the banamine relief. I am not to introduce Incan to a female for at least a month as to not cause more trauma to his penis.

Good news is that Incan should recover just fine. The steroids in the cream should ensure that his shaft doesn’t get any scar tissue build up and he should be able to breed with no problems in the future.

We’re not sure how this problem occurred. Many thoughts pop into our heads like during breeding some hair wrapped around his penis and when he extracted it could have cut into him,  possibly he hit the ground and scraped his penis on some small rocks, or maybe he extracted his penis pulling some kind of debris back into the shaft. We’ll never know for sure.

Tom can’t believe that I am able to apply the med by myself into Incan’s shaft, but I do. Incan isn’t thrilled about it, but he’s a good boy.

So what wouldn’t I do for my alpacas?

Valley Fever and Michelle Rose:

Before Valley Fever Pictures (taken in December 2008):

Tom and I always try to do herd management every month. However, we were so busy with the Phoenix show coming up in March that we didn’t do it in January. February came and I remarked to Tom at how skinny Michelle looked. We didn’t think too much of it since she had a cria at side and figured his nursing was causing her to lose weight. Regardless I couldn’t believe my ears when Tom read me her weight from the scale. Michelle is a tall girl and has always been on the skinny side, but we were able to maintain her at 165 lbs. Now Tom was telling me she was weighing 150 lbs. Valley Fever went through our minds, but the only symptom she was showing was weight loss. We kinda brushed it off, but I made an appt. for her anyway. The vet was out of town and with our show coming up we didn’t get Michelle in until 3 weeks later. In the meantime I started feeding Michelle extra grain.

The week of the show we weighed Michelle again. We couldn’t get a straight reading, but she was anywhere between 148 and 150 lbs. This wasn’t good. I separated Michelle and her cria, Valentino, into their own stall. I began free feeding and giving grain 3 times a day at 3-4 cups daily. The grain was Mazuri Repro & Growth formula, alfalfa pellets, and now beet pulp in the hopes of chunking her up. While at the show I had a volunteer to come in to feed Michelle personally. At least she was now maintaining her weight and not losing anymore.

The following week I heard what sounded like fluid in Michelle’s nasal passage. Pretty much like she needed to blow her nose. I called the vet and was advised to start administering Naxcel. The next day I took Michelle in and the vet drew blood. It would be a couple of days to find out if she had valley fever or not. Sure enough she did. Michelle was put immediately on Doccicyclene (antibotics for her upper respiratory infection) and Ketoconazole (antifungal med). It has only been a week, but Michelle is now up to 153.6 lbs. She may or may not have to remain on the meds for a year. We will have to see how her body reacts to the medication and if she is able to kill off the fungus.

Pictures of Michelle with Valley Fever Disease taken in March 2009: Notice that you can really see her spine. Notice her back legs have very little space between them. Notice how her hip bones are showing way too much in her rearview photo. Due to a couple of fevers recently Michelle has wool break. This fiber will be worthless this year.

The medical name for Valley Fever is coccidioidomycosis. Valley Fever is a fungus that lives in low desert areas with high temperatures and dry soil. Valley Fever can be contracted in the Southwestern US including California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The fungus in the form of spores becomes airborned when the soil is disrupted by construction, walking, or wind. The spores are breathed into the nose and land in the lungs.

Once in the lungs the spore changes into spherules which continue to grow until they burst. This burst releases hundreds of endospores. Each endospore can grow into a new spherule and the cycle continues. If not treated Valley Fever could move out of the lungs and into other organs and joints causing lameness.

Symptoms of Valley Fever consist of the following:

• Loss of appetite
• Extreme weight loss
• Lameness
• Coughing
• Fever

Valley Fever symptoms can take between 1 -4 weeks to appear. The day before I took Michelle into the vet she started to cough.

Valley Fever is not contagious. A spore must be inhaled by each individual animal. Coughing does not spread spores. Valley Fever is not an animal disease alone. Humans can also get inflicted with this disease. Most don’t even know they have it.

We expect Michelle to recover, but it will take time. It appears we caught it at the beginning. It does need to be noted that she may relapse again in the future. Michelle is being held open until she no longer needs to take the meds. After that there will be no problem in getting her pregnant.

I will keep you all posted on her progress. Feel free to comment or ask questions.

I used two sites in order to write this article: http://phoenix.about.com/cs/health/a/valleyfever01.htm and  http://phoenix.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=phoenix&cdn=citiestowns&tm=455&gps=126_1651_1020_552&f=00&su=p284.9.336.ip_p554.12.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.vfce.arizona.edu/VFCE%2520OLD/ValleyFever/canine/canine.htm

 

 

Alpaca Articles – Uterine Torsion in Alpacas This is the latest article I have written. Not only have I experienced first hand a female showing no sign of having a torsion other than not eating, but recently a fellow breeder just lost a female due to a torsion that was not corrected quickly and caused further internal issues. When I asked them what the dam’s symptoms was I was told only that she wasn’t eating. Do not be fooled into thinking that your dam will roll violently on the ground to let you know she is in trouble. Read more by clicking on the above link.

DMAR Update for Week 3/31:

We are still anxiously awaiting the birth of DMAR Athena’s first cria. Today is day 352. Tom and I cannot sleep the entire night through as we wake up to check the camera to see if she is showing any signs of labor. We have the camera hooked up right to our bedroom television and we don’t shut it off. Very convenient on one hand and awfully annoying on the other. However, I want to be sure to catch the birthing especially if there are any complications. Don’t forget to watch the Live Cam at Home and you too may catch the birthing.

Last month Tom and I had to deal with an alpaca, DMAR Apollo, getting very sick. We were very nervous about his not eating, having severe diarrhea, and a temperature. Although he never went down we could tell that this young male was very ill and we immediately took action to take care of him. You can read about our ordeal at How We Got an Alpaca to Start Eating Again.

Gino, the maremma pup, is now 3 mths old. He is still available and for $750 he comes fully dewormed, second set of shots, and microchipped. Gino is growing nicely and is already following the rest of the adult dogs around barking and trying to keep up with the chase. Gino is not afraid of the alpacas and does not chase after them. He will occasionally walk up to them and sniff them out, but for the most part he leaves them alone.

The Arizona Fiber Co-op recently received back our products from the mill. Every year the co-op gathers donated fiber only from the Arizona Alpaca growers and sends it off to the mill to have yarn, sock, and other products made. This year DMAR store has had rose grey cable knitted dress socks and cream colored yarn skeins made. You can view and purchase these items now at DMAR Store. All payments are done through Pay Pal which is secure.

We now have gardeners coming by for our alpaca manure. We off the manure for free, so simply call us for a first time appt. We will show you where it is. After that you can stop by at your leisure to pick some up. We do have a shovel for you to use, but you need to bring your own bags or buckets.

Click on the link Alpaca Article – Alpaca Shearing to view the most recent article.

Summer is coming up quickly. Alpaca ranchers in SE Arizona are busily preparing their alpacas to be sheared by late April through May. For the health of the alpaca you want to get the fiber off of them before summer hits as to not create heat stress. Are you ready?

This month’s articles on alpacas is Keeping Alpacas Safe.  Owning alpacas means having to think about keeping predators away. This article is mostly about what we did to protect our alpacas. Of course there are other things that can be done, but hopefully I can get your mind thinking.

The March Alpaca Article – Ulcers – in- Alpacas is the hardest article I have written to date. I am still filled with emotion and cannot even begin to explain how my husband feels. Overall we hope together that our loss will be someone’s gain if this article can help them read the signs of their alpaca having an ulcer. Ulcers unfortunately are a silent killer, but as silent as ulcers are they are very painful to the alpaca. There is nothing worse than to see an alpaca you love in pain and feeling useless in helping to resolve the issue. Please feel free to post or to contact us privately at info@desertmtnalpacas.com should you have any questions or comments.

January’s article is now up. Click on the link to go to the page. Creating an Alpaca Ranch Store

 

Feel free to post any questions you might have.

In the Alpaca Article – Got Milk? I mentioned using Domperidone as a treatment for enhancing the milk production in poor or non-milk producers. I failed to mention that Thiamine shots also need to be given at the same time. Tests done by Dr. Evans shows more success in dams creating milk when given additional Thiamine. This was our second year using Domperidone and Thiamine on a poor milk producer and we are very happy with the results.