Now it's getting interesting!

I am not going to babble on and inject any sort of suspense at all this morning in fact I'm going to come straight out with it. Three hundred grams, that's 300 grams! Little Tsar has put on 300 grams in the last 24 hours!

Now on Wednesday he had put on 50 grams which is really neither here nor there, yesterday he had put on 150 grams which was encouraging but 300 grams in the last 24 hours! That makes exactly half a kilo in 72 hours!

How? How is he doing it? He is still squitting through the eye of a needle so how is he doing it?

Well he is spending most of his day doing this for starters!

The other reason, and I am utterly convinced about this; cow colostrum. That lovely yellow creamy stuff made by that beautiful dairy cow in the Woodford Valley. Two days after we started giving Tsar cow colostrum he started gaining weight. Co-incidence? I don't think so.

I have been thinking about it a lot this morning. He was losing weight steadily despite eating all day before the colostrum. His scouring is the same, which is a worry, but I just have a hunch that is going to clear up soon.

If he is putting on weight his stomach lining must be absorbing nutrition from the food he is eating, it simply must be? He only gets about 40ml of colostrum and 50-60ml of goat yoghurt from us every day, so 100 grams in total, yet he has put on half a kilo in three days. His stomach must be working?

The sun is even shining today and there was lots of interest when Tsar and Thor moved to their outside pen this morning, even Kira decided to sit and carry out a little vigil.

I know there is a lot of heartache amongst fellow bloggers at the moment and I hope in some way Tsars little story is helping in a small way.

In the red zone.

Every morning when I go out to weigh Tsar and feed the rest of the herd I watch the gate to the shed that Tsar and Thor (God of Thunder) are housed in. I suppose there is always a feeling of dread as when they hear the gate to the field open the two boys look out to see who it is, I am waiting to see both of them.

Thor is always first to stick his head through the bars of the gate and peer round to see who is coming. There is always a split second where I am holding my breath before Tsar then sticks his head through the gate, one rung lower. I then relax as I know he is up and about. This is the view of the gate this morning, a wonderful sight.

Again Tsar was bright and alert. Weighing in commenced and I was very excited to see that the little bugger has put on another 150 grams!

We only made one change to his regime yesterday, after several readers suggested it we have now started giving Tsar pro-biotic whole goats milk yoghurt. We have also stopped the Pro-rumen.

Now, hopefully, early days I know but fingers crossed. we are living in the 'red zone'.

Insignificant?

Something happened this morning which hasn't happened for a week. When I weighed Tsar (I dread weighing in) for the first time in seven days he had gained weight. Now it was only 50 grams, and as I said yesterday when he lost 50 grams it was only the equivalent of a quick wee. 

I think about Tsar all the time. When I close my eyes in Bedfordshire every night I am thinking of him and he is the first thing on my mind when I wake up. 50 grams is a very small amount. Maybe he's had a big wee by now and weighs less than that?

I am trying to stay realistic, trying not to get carried away. He could be dead tomorrow I know that, he only weighs 16.30kg and he is seven months old. He is hanging on a very thin thread. But......... on the wihiteboard in the kitchen the numbers have changed from black (weight loss) to red (weight gain).

He still has the squits big time, it's still pouring out of him but is Gelda's colostrum starting to take affect? 

Here is little Tsar at feeding time saying hello to all the other weaners this morning. 

Come on son hang in there, we can do it!

Daily Tsar update.

Thank you all so much for your comments, e-mails and telephone calls. Sue and I are digesting all of the advice that has been passed to us and are treating Tsar as best as we can.

As there is so much interest I will try and keep up a daily blog of how he progresses.

He is still bright and alert this morning and tucking into food. We have introduced micronised peas and alfalfa into his feed and he has access to some lovely soft hay. I have also given him a large dose of multi-vitamins this morning.

He lost more weight overnight but dramatically less than the past few days, in fact he only lost 50 grams which I guess is about the equivalent of a quick wee!

We have got into a regime now, he has had his first daily dose of Colostrum and his Pro-rumen. I have also given him 200ml of water with glucose and electrolytes in it. As soon as I did that he wandered off and had a very long drink from his bucket!

We have stopped the Kaogel. The reasoning behind this is that a) it wasn't making a huge difference, and b) we think it may affect the absorption of the Colostrum.

As it isn't raining or snowing Tsar is now outside for the day with his 'room-mate' Thor (God of Thunder).
I don't think Thor is talking to Tsar today though as it appears that Tsar squitted all over his back overnight. Ooops!

So, here in Patouland we are still positive!

Last chance saloon

I reported in my last blog that little Tsar was improving, he was. Unfortunately it was short lived and the little chap has gone down hill.

To recap; 2 months ago he was stripped of condition by a bad case of worm infestation, Nematodirus. After fecal samples were examined the worm was knocked on the head. We had weaned him as his mother's milk was disappearing and she wasn't showing any interest in him. He was put in a warm dry shed with another weanling and he quickly got stuck into the hard feed and the hay. He put on weight.

About a month ago he started scouring and still is. More samples were examined and  Giardia was detected. This has been treated with a five day course of Panacur. He also had a three day course of Baytril, a strong antibiotic. We have been treating him with Kaogel and Pro-rumen three times a day ever since and occasionally his poop firms up a bit. This morning it is like very thick gravy.

He is eating well and drinking water but it all seems to go straight through him and he is slowly losing weight. he is now down to 16.30kg, about half what he should be.

The vets seem to have just given up and I am no longer speaking to them.

Two days ago we did some transfaunation. Bobby, one of our hair trigger spit monsters was caught, a plastic  bag was put over her muzzle and I 'tickled her' until we had enough of the green stuff. This was then drenched into Tsar.

The theory is that his gut lining was damaged so much by the initial worm infestation that he simply cannot absorb enough to keep him alive.

Luckily I work in a beautifully rural area and am in contact with a lot of farmers. I sent out an appeal for some cows colostrum. An article in the October SWAG newsletter documented several cases in New Zealand where cow colostrum had been used to repair damaged gut linings in weanlings and adult alpacas following weight loss from severe parasite infestations.

I spoke to the vet, who asked what the scientific background was to it. When I could offer nothing scientific to back it up it was dismissed summarily, that is why we are no longer talking. How closed minded some people can be! I wanted to argue the point but it would have been brick wall time and then I would have stopped being polite, not worth it. New vet required!

One very special dairy farmer, with four dairy cows on a private estate owned by a rock legend, came to my assistance and yesterday I collected a litre of the finest organic disease free cow colostrum.

The regime suggested by the breeders in NZ is to administer 1ml per kilo of body weight twice a day for two weeks. Tsar had his first dose last night and his second one this morning. He seems to like it, it is like orange double cream, might have a dribble myself!

This morning he was still bright, alert and tucking into the food.

So at the moment our hopes are resting on the healing powers of the colostrum made by a beautiful Swiss dairy cow called Gelda.

I am always open to any other suggestions though!

Winning the battle

I haven't posted for several weeks, I am not quite sure why. Have I been miserable? No more than usual. Grumpy? I'm always grumpy. Suffering from some weird and painful disease which only affects the tips of my fingers thus making typing impossible? No. Lack of interest in alpacas and spreading the good word from Patouland? No, of course not, I will, and do, talk for hours about the Mighty herd and alpacas in general. In fact at work wherever I go with a colleague they are always waiting to see when and how I will turn the conversation from burglary or violence around to discussing the merits of owning alpacas. I bore everyone I meet with talk about alpacas and fecal samples and fleece results and breeding decisions and unless they change the subject to something more interesting I just carry on. It's funny watching their faces. Completely transfixed initially (mainly through politeness I think) followed by a slow dawning that the conversation has now entered a depth that is proving difficult to understand, then the eyes start to shift rapidly looking for a way out before finally bolting for the nearest door (not easy with me clamped to them like a koala bear up a gum tree!). Oh what fun we have.

So, anyway, enough wittering on about why I haven't blogged, for here I am blogging again. So much to talk about but I will restrict this posting to two subjects. Tsar, our little Qjori boy and his progress from deaths door and a cracking weekend last week.

Firstly, to last weekend. Sue and I were very fortunate to be invited to a meeting of great alpaca minds. Matt and Cathy Lloyd had included us in a gathering of such power and import in the alpaca world that we knew our heads were going to be spinning with excited delirium. Heavy snow the week before had meant a one week postponement.

 Alpacas and some snow in Patouland.

Not only had we the pleasure of the company of the Chiefs of the truly Mighty EPC but we had the presence of the Mighty Inca tribe who had left the massed black ranks in Dorset and ventured North East to Baydon. Not only that but we had the cream of the North attending too. The Mighty Fowberry and the Mighty Beck Brow ventured south (chased by the snow) to form an awesome alpaca gathering.

The hospitality was excellent and the company was terrific. On Saturday the menfolk went off armed to the teeth to frighten some pheasants. I like to think that as we are all essentially animal lovers that subconsciously many birds were spared. Sadly the reality is that we were all trying to kill as many as possible. Perhaps at this point I should speak only for my own efforts. There was definitely something wrong with my gun.
However, there was a decent amount of birds to carry home and at the end of the day, walking around in beautiful countryside with the sun beaming down with a group of good people surrounded by alpacas was a pretty good way to spend the day.

The evening was equally splendid with a magnificent curry provided by Cathy and plenty of wine (just!) to ensure that my memory of leaving is slightly blurry. Matt and Cathy, if you read this drivel, thank you very much! I have no photos of the weekend, too drunk to think about it is my excuse.

Anyway to my second subject, Tsar (pictured below right with his chum Todd).

To recap, after a lightly shaky start involving being bottle fed for a while Tsar was doing fine until he was about 5 months old when he was stripped of all condition by a parasite. I don't think he was far away from deaths door. A fecal sample showed a nasty little worm called Nematodirus which once identified was knocked on the head with Panacur and Zolvix. He started putting weight back on and we thought that was that. He had been brought into the shed and was given plenty of TLC. He had also had blood tests which revealed that everything appeared normal.

Two weeks ago he was rocked with violent diarrhoea and he dropped to just over 15 kilos (6 months old remember). Having consulted with old twinkletoes we went into overdrive and treated him with Kaogel and  Pro-rumen three times a day and a course of powerful anti-biotics (baytril). We also added Effadryl to his water and slowly but surely he started to recover. Sue stayed at home last Saturday until he had his three doses and then joined the throng at Baydon. Upon returning last Sunday Tsar weighed in at 18 kilos and yesterday he was a mighty improved 18.80kg.

A further fecal sample was submitted for more in depth testing at the VLA and I have just got off the phone with  the vet who reports the presence of a nasty little squit inducing protozoa called Giardia.

We will treat him for that which is a 5 day dose of oral Panacur. However this morning I was very excited to find two little pellets hanging from his bottom! We know that we are not out of the woods yet but we can see the sunshine on the other side of the trees and I am wielding a mighty tree felling axe!

Perplexing weaners

So another year in the life of Patou Alpacas has passed, another year planning for ultimate world domination is behind us and where do we stand? Have we moved on? Is there noticeable progression?

Well, yes there is. We produced the best cria that we have seen last summer and although the best of the best has had us flapping like good 'uns I think we are on the upward curve.

We got to the bottom of why Tsar Tsar Superstar was ailing. I think we were only a day or two from losing him actually. Nematodirus. That is the name of the worm that had got him. That is the worm that stripped his condition from healthy to nothing in two weeks. Tsar had been wormed but Nematodirus is resistant to Ivermectins and as we had given the herd an Ivermectin based wormer for some reason he was affected. All of the other cria seem fine.

Tsar Tsar Superstar before Nematodirus hit him.

Once Nematodirus had been discovered he was given two drench wormers, Panacur and then the new kid on the block Zolvix. Zolvix is a new wormer which kills worms that are resistant to other wormers.

It was then a case of following wise Australian advice and being cruel to be kind. We took Tsars mother away (she had lost interest in him) and put him in the shed with two weaners who were already on hard food, Tabitha and Talisker. We removed all of the hay and just left them with hard feed and water. Slowly but surely Tsar has been gaining weight.

Last weekend in fact we decided to wean all of the cria. All of them were weighed and the 30 kilos plus group of five, Tarquin, Taz, Truffle, Travis and Talisker were released into the paddock nearest to the house containing the shed. The other five, Tsar, Thor, Troy, Tabitha and Todd, who are all under 25 kilos have gone into the shed and are surrounded by food. I am resisting the urge to weigh them daily and will weigh them after a week. The over 30 kilo group have access to the other half of the shed where they too have a supply of hard food plus hay.

The under 30 kilo group wishing they were outside with the others - soon my babies, soon.

(From left to right, Thor, Todd (pieface), Tabitha, Tsar (headless) and Troy)

I am a hundred percent certain that the weather is to blame for the slow growth of these cria and the worm infestation that Tsar had. The land is too wet and as a result I think we are overstocked. As we are so waterlogged we have been looking for more land and have managed to rent a further 3 acres in a nearby village. 3 acres on a nice chalky slope which means that the ground is relatively dry.

Twelve pregnant females were taken over last weekend and they have settled in nicely. It is a bit of a pain driving over there twice a day but it is worth it, it has taken the pressure of the land here.

 

The new Patou outpost in Fonthill Bishop.

 The girls are still a bit wary of their new surroundings but dinner is served as usual.

With a bit of luck this ridiculous weather will sort itself out and we will soon be facing a hosepipe ban.