A touch of the trots

The last three days we have been pretty busy here in Patouland.

On Friday we noticed that our lovely 'older lady' of the herd, Deedee, was a bit lethargic and not eating. She is a ten year old medium fawn Chilean import with an absolutely super temperament which she passes on to her cria. Fifi, the 'noser', who I mentioned in the last blog is Dee's cria from last year.

She has done this before so we knew what to do, a dose of antibiotics, and a course of Vetrumex and she perked up.

However, I also noticed that Valley Farm Sheba had a rather runny bottom. We observed her for 24 hours and the 'softness' turned into 'wateriness'. Chocolate moose to oxtail soup if you will pardon the comparison. That was the cue to throw everything at her and also look at the rest of the herd. Sheba was wormed (1.5ml Ivomec super), treated for coccidiosis (20ml Vecoxan), given antibiotics (4ml Nuflor) and given 7ml of Kaogel. Having done that we wormed the whole herd to be on the safe side.

Today I have been out amongst them and there are no signs of 'looseness' anywhere. Sheba herself saw me coming and as I approached her she turned sideways on, assumed the position and plopped out a nice firm poop for me to look at. Marvellous. We are still watching carefully for anymore signs but seem to have sorted it out which is satisfying.

Saturday was a good day here. We were visited by some very nice people who had come to look at Milarka. Milarka is an incredible alpaca being a Purrumbete Highlander daughter. We have had her for sale for over a year and it has baffled the doodahs out of me why no-one snapped her up. She has a beautiful white Killawasi girl at foot and has bred some tremendous cria in the past few years. In short she is a superb breeding machine and would be a valuable addition to any herd. I am very happy to report that the visitors are now to be Milarka and Minna's new owners. I know they will be very pleased with her, she does the business.