March 2008
How often is too often to deworm?
To quote Dr. Norm Evans, "There is no universal deworming program." With that said, there seems to be many practices in the camelid industry which run the gamut from monthly deworming to only doing fecal floation and to treat accordingly.
This raises several delimmas.
To participate in shows, an animal must be dewormed 7 days prior. Some farms seem to lean towards a structured program regardless of possible infestation, others alternate dewormers "just in case". Others will treat when noticable.
Are we over treating, leading to an ever increasing risk of resistance?
Once again, Dr. Evans strongly suggests "Do not deworm as a preventative. Do fecals." He reports seeing Sarcoptic mange in camelids that have been dewormed monthly with Ivomec and Dectomec. These drugs are supposed to be the best treatment for Sarcoptic mange, but a resistance has developed.
Where does this leave us in the industry? Consider what has happened in human medicine. Resistance has occured with most all of the anitbiotics available, making treatment of the most mildest cases of infection a perplexing challenge.
January 2008
I am going to ask the age old question again to see if there are any new ideas to help this problem.....
Question..why do my animals lose the hair off their noses and how do I prevent this? I've seen no excessive rubbing, no allergic type reactions, and give them free choice minerals.
The black alpacas have always had a problem, yet now over this winter the white ones are losing their fleece on their noses as well.
I've heard every reason, yet no good solutions. The reasons so far, allergies, zinc deficiency, excessive UV light exposure (for black animals).
I would appreciate any and all suggestions on how to correct this very annoying problem.
