help--need some ideas

[dinnka]

pat just saw on the news tonight.. a alpaca farm lost over 100 alplacas ( he raises champions that sell for $15,000- over $100,000 ) he has a head of 1500 alpacas and lost over 100 of them recently, after doing all medicals, he sent their food to columbus and their food came back with a ingredient that is used in chicken feed, it is deadly to llamas and alpacas.. what brand of feed are you using for your llamas?
also another farm close to here lost alot of his for the same reason, and several others around the country.. i cant remember the name of the feed but if you said yours i will remember if it is the same or not, in the mean time i will try and pull up that story and find the name of the company
mandy

[sueBear]

http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=64255&provider=gnews

Land O' Lakes Farmland Feed.

(google is great isnt it LOL)

[flawlesserr]

Pat,

Ivermectin has been suggested as part of the management of this disease because it can cross the blood-brain barrier, but it is ineffective once the larvae are in the spinal cord.

The P. tenuis larvae migrate through the spinal cord of aberrant hosts, causing neurological deficits. Clinical signs observed in affected llamas include lameness, incoordination, difficulty rising, paraplegia, paralysis, circling and blindness. Clinical signs appear around 45-53 days post-infection

Considering symptoms were already evident it isn't an uneducated guess to say the larvae had reached the spinal cord... in which case there wasn't much you could do.

Again, keeping them up to date on worming meds is your best bet.

I'm truly sorry for you I hope you don't have to go through this again.

[flawlesserr]

Here're are two sites with some information

http://www.shagbarkridge.com/info/menin.html

http://www.sheepandgoat.com/articles/deerworm.html