We have been in a frenzy around here lately because four of our six show animals came back from the TxOLAN Alpaca Spectacular with diarrhea. They are eating well, and they are drinking, but what comes out the working end has NOT been beans for a few days.
Called the vet a few days ago and he prescribed 20cc of peptobismol 3 times a day until the diarrhea stopped. During the time when we weren’t dosing pepto, we were to give a double dose of MSE, a microbial paste which keeps their rumen working and gives them some B vitamins. A couple of them have had a slight fever, but for the most part we are thankful that no one has gone down. A downer alpaca is yet another story!!!
So, today is the seventh day since we got home from the show and for five days we have been dealing with this diarrhea. Things are starting to firm up now, if you know what I mean. An added note is that we don’t seem to be the only ranch that came home from the show with diarrhea. I hope that everyone gets to feeling better real soon.
I had some animals at a recent show and we now have the diarhea problem you explained. We are in process of checking some of the animals for exposure to BVD. Did you ever test? Do you know what the cause of the diarhea was? We are just sick about this and would appreciate any advise or knowledge you might be able to offer us.
So far except for the diahrea, they are not showing any other symptoms of BVD (no fever, eating like usual, no still borns etc.) but everyone tells us there can’t be anything else it could be as we did not change feeds or introduce new animals. We only went to the show.
Doreen
By: Doreen on March 29, 2008
at 12:26 pm