FranklinHazelGardens
Ridin' The Range
I’m posting this as my journal of what I’m doing to help my llama, Stephen. I have two vets helping me with him right now. I’m gravely worried about him and it’s not looking good but I’m doing all I can and I’m a stubborn lady. Please, please post here if you’ve had a down llama with MW who recovered. It would offer so much encouragement.
I went to the barn this morning to feed my bottle lamb and my guard llama was laying on his side in the threshold of the sheep pen. Since he’s a llama I suspected that he would see me and get up and walk off with his characteristic side eye. He did not. Well %#*£.
I have had him one year and he doesn’t let me touch him. I’ve needed to trim his toenails so I took this opportunity to do so and examine his feet. They are fine. More importantly: that was the easiest nail trimming of my life. Including my own. Not good, he’s in bad shape. F#^*#.
My instincts tell me three things: 1. Injury 2. Bloat 3. Worms (later meningeal worms is what I learned to be the most likely).
I examined him for injury. His bones seem to be unbroken, no blood anywhere, no indication of pain or discomfort when I examine. Ruled out unless there is ann internal injury or head/neck injury that is showing no visible signs.
*Anyone with fiber animals who needs to assess for injury: get your hands in there. If they don’t have white fiber it can be hard to tell if they are bleeding. So use your hands to sort of gently “rake” the area to located any wounds and look at your hands every time you do so to see if that area has blood.
Bloat: he recently started to get grain with the ewes mostly because it’s really cold and snowy. And he came up to me a few nights ago and ate out of my hand. I’ve given him only about a cup at a time the past few days so I doubt it’s bloat. I treat it anyway. I gave a baking soda and water drench and some gas x.
MW: at this point I called the vet. I have valbazen and ivermectin sheep drench on hand and we work out a dosing. He needs pain meds/NSAIDs so I do the drenches and head to the vet to get a bottle of Banamine for pain. Having a llama can be so hard because there is zero dosing for llamas or alpacas on the labels of dewormers and many large animal vets have not worked with them so half the time I’m looking at some random blog from a homesteader who probably doesn’t even have a llama but decided to write a blog post anyway.
Things to note: first, I knew next to nothing about this worm 24 hours ago, there may be things I’m not describing correctly and I AM NOT A VETERINARIAN.
I got back and administered the pain med intramuscularly. I got Stephen up and he managed to walk but it was like he was drunk and disoriented. He made it about thirty feet before he fell again onto his side. The same side as last time. I grabbed hay bales and used them to prop him up. I got his head up and he was almost on his side. He’s really heavy so I can’t move him unless he’s an active participant. He seemed alert and calm and generally ok with the set up. Also there was so much burping which I took as a good sign.
I came back a few hours later and he moved about four feet and was laying on his side. Stacked up some more hay to prop him up. Couple hours later he pushed the hay around so that he could lay his head on the ground and he was on his side again. When I try to get him turned to the cush position he actively resists it and uses his strength to push his head down to the ground. I finally gave up I can’t fight with him forever it’s a losing battle. As soon as I leave he’ll go back to it again anyway. Also more burping.
So now I wait and hope and pray that he can make it through. It really sucks.
MW is neurological and a worm that affects the spinal cord and the brain. If your camelid is acting out of character and it’s around January or September then it’s possible that it’s MW and you can treat the animal with ivermectin. If your animal is down like mine it’s not good and probably too late but treatment is now with safeguard. I guess ivermectin doesn’t reach the blood/brain barrier and that’s what the animal needs once you notice neurological symptoms so safeguard/panacur is what you need then.
MW comes from deer poo then slugs and snails eat it and then Stephen (or your llama) eats the grass with a slug in it and then about 45-60 days later symptoms like this happen. Ways to prevent it are if your pasture is like mine where deer can access it and there’s low points which collect water and attract snails and slugs then you basically need them in a different pasture lol. I read an article from a vet that said he saw most of his cases in January-ish and September-ish for his region (Ohio river valley) and he surmised that slugs aren’t really out in the hot part of the summer or the cold parts of winter. So since it takes about two months to progress it’s likely the exposures to MW is happening when it just starts to get cooler for the fall causing a January issue and when it starts to get warmer in the spring causing the September issue. Makes sense to me so going forward I will deworm at late spring and fall.
The internet will give you a list of symptoms of strange behavior that you may see in the earlier stages of MW but I’ll tell you what I saw in mine the last few days because it seems normal for other animals:
1. Stephen wasn’t walking away from me when I entered the barn or the pen. It was almost like he started to like me. Llamas are like cats and the DGAF about you. I thought maybe Stephen finally realized how I feed him and that he should respect me and that I have literally never caused him harm.
2. He ate from my hand. He would have never done that in his right mind
3. A couple of times this past week I scared him when I walked into the barn. Like he wasn’t expecting me. He’s very nosey and alert, nothing surprises him.
So I guess I’m saying that if your llama who is indifferent to your very being is all of a sudden less of a d^ck, maybe give him some dewormer to be on the safe side??
But seriously the only thing you can do for MW prevention is regularly deworm every two months but that creates resistant worms and it can down my Sheep with worms that I can’t kill.
Again, I hope Llama Stephen pulls through. I really do. I have done everything I can and even if I knew all of the above last year, Stephen is a d^ck and never let me catch him to deworm him or trim his nails so I probably couldn’t have anyway.
I went to the barn this morning to feed my bottle lamb and my guard llama was laying on his side in the threshold of the sheep pen. Since he’s a llama I suspected that he would see me and get up and walk off with his characteristic side eye. He did not. Well %#*£.
I have had him one year and he doesn’t let me touch him. I’ve needed to trim his toenails so I took this opportunity to do so and examine his feet. They are fine. More importantly: that was the easiest nail trimming of my life. Including my own. Not good, he’s in bad shape. F#^*#.
My instincts tell me three things: 1. Injury 2. Bloat 3. Worms (later meningeal worms is what I learned to be the most likely).
I examined him for injury. His bones seem to be unbroken, no blood anywhere, no indication of pain or discomfort when I examine. Ruled out unless there is ann internal injury or head/neck injury that is showing no visible signs.
*Anyone with fiber animals who needs to assess for injury: get your hands in there. If they don’t have white fiber it can be hard to tell if they are bleeding. So use your hands to sort of gently “rake” the area to located any wounds and look at your hands every time you do so to see if that area has blood.
Bloat: he recently started to get grain with the ewes mostly because it’s really cold and snowy. And he came up to me a few nights ago and ate out of my hand. I’ve given him only about a cup at a time the past few days so I doubt it’s bloat. I treat it anyway. I gave a baking soda and water drench and some gas x.
MW: at this point I called the vet. I have valbazen and ivermectin sheep drench on hand and we work out a dosing. He needs pain meds/NSAIDs so I do the drenches and head to the vet to get a bottle of Banamine for pain. Having a llama can be so hard because there is zero dosing for llamas or alpacas on the labels of dewormers and many large animal vets have not worked with them so half the time I’m looking at some random blog from a homesteader who probably doesn’t even have a llama but decided to write a blog post anyway.
Things to note: first, I knew next to nothing about this worm 24 hours ago, there may be things I’m not describing correctly and I AM NOT A VETERINARIAN.
I got back and administered the pain med intramuscularly. I got Stephen up and he managed to walk but it was like he was drunk and disoriented. He made it about thirty feet before he fell again onto his side. The same side as last time. I grabbed hay bales and used them to prop him up. I got his head up and he was almost on his side. He’s really heavy so I can’t move him unless he’s an active participant. He seemed alert and calm and generally ok with the set up. Also there was so much burping which I took as a good sign.
I came back a few hours later and he moved about four feet and was laying on his side. Stacked up some more hay to prop him up. Couple hours later he pushed the hay around so that he could lay his head on the ground and he was on his side again. When I try to get him turned to the cush position he actively resists it and uses his strength to push his head down to the ground. I finally gave up I can’t fight with him forever it’s a losing battle. As soon as I leave he’ll go back to it again anyway. Also more burping.
So now I wait and hope and pray that he can make it through. It really sucks.
MW is neurological and a worm that affects the spinal cord and the brain. If your camelid is acting out of character and it’s around January or September then it’s possible that it’s MW and you can treat the animal with ivermectin. If your animal is down like mine it’s not good and probably too late but treatment is now with safeguard. I guess ivermectin doesn’t reach the blood/brain barrier and that’s what the animal needs once you notice neurological symptoms so safeguard/panacur is what you need then.
MW comes from deer poo then slugs and snails eat it and then Stephen (or your llama) eats the grass with a slug in it and then about 45-60 days later symptoms like this happen. Ways to prevent it are if your pasture is like mine where deer can access it and there’s low points which collect water and attract snails and slugs then you basically need them in a different pasture lol. I read an article from a vet that said he saw most of his cases in January-ish and September-ish for his region (Ohio river valley) and he surmised that slugs aren’t really out in the hot part of the summer or the cold parts of winter. So since it takes about two months to progress it’s likely the exposures to MW is happening when it just starts to get cooler for the fall causing a January issue and when it starts to get warmer in the spring causing the September issue. Makes sense to me so going forward I will deworm at late spring and fall.
The internet will give you a list of symptoms of strange behavior that you may see in the earlier stages of MW but I’ll tell you what I saw in mine the last few days because it seems normal for other animals:
1. Stephen wasn’t walking away from me when I entered the barn or the pen. It was almost like he started to like me. Llamas are like cats and the DGAF about you. I thought maybe Stephen finally realized how I feed him and that he should respect me and that I have literally never caused him harm.
2. He ate from my hand. He would have never done that in his right mind
3. A couple of times this past week I scared him when I walked into the barn. Like he wasn’t expecting me. He’s very nosey and alert, nothing surprises him.
So I guess I’m saying that if your llama who is indifferent to your very being is all of a sudden less of a d^ck, maybe give him some dewormer to be on the safe side??
But seriously the only thing you can do for MW prevention is regularly deworm every two months but that creates resistant worms and it can down my Sheep with worms that I can’t kill.
Again, I hope Llama Stephen pulls through. I really do. I have done everything I can and even if I knew all of the above last year, Stephen is a d^ck and never let me catch him to deworm him or trim his nails so I probably couldn’t have anyway.
Please keep us updated. Hopefully what you've done is enough to keep him alive. Recovery will take time.
