- Down to earth practical tips on everyday alpaca nutrition. more »
- If the dam has no milk/has died or the cria is too weak to nurse, feed warm colostrum (frozen and stored from another disease-free alpaca/cow/goat) via teat (preferred method, to optimise digestion) or stomach tube (last resort) for the first 3 days of life to maximise antibody uptake into blood (first 12 hours of life) and to provide local gut protection from microbes for the duration of use. more »
- Lice infestation of alpacas is widespread in Australia, albeit at low levels, and its presence is usually detected in herds at shearing time. Lice are species specific, meaning that camelid lice only infect camelids, cattle lice only infect cattle and sheep lice only infect sheep. There are two genuses of camelid lice, namely the biting or chewing louse, Bovicola spp. (Figure 1), and the sucking louse, Microthoracius spp. The former genus of lice feed superficially on the skin, the latter penetrate the skin and feed on tissue fluids. more »
- Liver fluke is the common name of the trematode, Fasciola hepatica. The parasite is found worldwide and is the only liver fluke found in Australia. Infection can lead to reduced productivity and death and costs millions of dollars each year in lost production (meat, wool, milk, liver condemnation, secondary infection, replacement stock requirements), stock deaths and costs of treatment and prevention. The fluke mainly affects cattle and sheep, but can also affect alpacas, goats, horses, pigs, kangaroos, wombats, rabbits and deer. Humans may also be infected, for example after eating watercress collected from fluke-infested creeks or following use of contaminated water on vegetable gardens. The adult fluke is a pale brown or grayish-brown flat worm about 1.5-4 cm long that lives in the bile ducts of the liver (Figure 1). more »
- The gastrointestinal parasite Haemonchus spp. is better known as the barber’s pole worm (BPW) because the adult female worm has a white tubular uterus that winds around their blood-filled tubular gut, giving the look of a barber’s pole (Figure 1). This parasite is a blood sucker of domestic livestock, causing anaemia and illthrift and can kill alpacas (and sheep, cattle and goats) quickly and in high numbers. more »