Thursday 11 September 2008

I am sulking. Big time.

This morning Sue and I carried out our fortnightly check of the mighty Patou herd. We had several injections to give, some worming to do and all the little ones needed weighing. All bar Jonah that is who has now passed the top of our scales and is a great big lump. He is 2 and a half months old and is over 25kilos. Bless him.

One of the things we check for on our fortnightly check is jaw abscesses. Readers may remember a few months ago that we were treating our favourite alpaca in the whole wide world, Lily for a jaw abscess. We treated her aggressively with Nuflor for 5 weeks and the abscess seemed to harden and shrink slightly.

It has remained cherry sized until today when we discovered a secondary abscess next to the original lump. I have to say my heart sank. I know abscesses are part of alpaca life but as I have said before, Lily is special to us here. She is a special alpaca. And now she has another of those horrible bloody abscesses.

We have started her on another 5 week course of Nuflor and I have spoken to our vet. Unless the thing disappears in the next 5 months, which is highly unlikely, we will have Lily operated on and have the lump/tooth removed. Lily was mated to Jack of Spades last week but if she doesn't spit off we will probably leave her empty over the winter. We can then concentrate on getting her in the best condition for surgery. Once Lily's cria Millie is weaned she can go off and get it sorted out.

So no laughs today from me readers.

I am sulking. Big time.

2 comments:

Gerry said...

Bloody hell Mark - total bummer. We had the same operation done on one of ours this year and thankfully she's much better. Fingers crossed the Nuflor does the trick for you this time.

Patou Alpacas said...

Thanks Gerry.

I remembered that you had gone through the same thing. Very pleased to hear that she's much better.