• Lower incisors and dental pad

•   Lower canines and laterally placed upper incisors- ‘fighting teeth’- need cutting in males

•   Five cheek teeth: 2 pre- molars, 3 molars 

• Saliva production ≈4L/day (llama)

•   Foregut fermenters, 3 chambers (C1- C3), regurgitate, cud, eructate and spit.

•   C1: Rumen analogous, C2: Reticulum analogous, C3: Only caudal 20% acidic, glandular

  stomach.

•   Slow gut transit

•   Very efficient water resorption: sometimes may not scour even with serious GIT Disease.

•   Normally pelleted faeces. 

  - dont starve

• Tylopods: Weight bear on P2 and leathery sole.

•   Nail just for grip, trim back level with sole.

•   Kick in all directions. 

• Alpaca: Fibre fine, soft and dense. ‘No itch’, medullated (hollow) fibre- very warm. Shear annually- if unshorn danger of over- heating and flystrike.

  Llama: coarse guard hairs and soft undercoat. Labour intensive to seperate 

•   Right Jugular Vein

•   Distal third of neck

•   Ventral projection of 5th and 6th cervical vertebrae- can palpate them 

•   Jugular filling not visable 

0.  

•   Male: 2.5 years- preputal adhesions until then, surgical removal at 3 years if required.

•   Female: 1.5 years, often not bred until 2 – 3 years.

  Mate in cush position.
  

0. Terminate with PGF2α from 6 – 100 days: Alpaca 1ml, llama 2ml.
   

0. Variable length 340 +/- 25 days (approx. 11 months). Foetal oversize rare. Twins rare. 

0. Left flank ultrasound 3.5 mHz probe. Not before day 40.
   

0. PGF2α within 10 days of due date.
   Stage 1 labour: 1.5 – 2 hours
   Stage 2 labour: 0.5 hour
   Dystocia uncommon- remember long neck and limbs.
   Healthy Cria: Normally sit up in 10 minutes, stand in 1 hour, nursing in 3 – 4 hours.
   

• Total protein <5g/l, low IgG, Sodium sulphate turbidity

•   Can give sheep or goat colostrum

•   Frozen plasma transfusion

  Weaning: approximately 6 months. 

• - similar to horses- go endotoxic fast 

  Should be expelled within 6 hours

•   Oxytocin 20 – 30 IU IM, antibiotic and NSAID.

•   Gentle manual removal 

  - no cotyledons 

•   From 1.5 years old

•   Standing sedation or GA/heavy sedation for lateral or ventral (up on a bale) recumbancy

•   Local in cord

•   Open technique

•   Ligate with absorbable suture

•   Leave skin incision open 

0. Worms

1.   Low resistance, small burdens significant

2.   Haemonchus, Ostertagia, Cooperia, Trichostrongylus, Capillaria, Nematodirus, Trichuris

3.   Beware co- grazing with sheep

4.   FWEC’s low sensitivity- false negatives. Modified Stoll’s more sensitive (down to 5 epg) than

   McMasters.

5.   Avoid pooled samples

6.   May not scour even with heavy burdens (adaption to arid climate)

7.   Severe anaemia with Haemonchus can be as low as 6% (24 -28% adequate) Transfusion

   may be required- check smear for Mycoplasma haemolamae.

8.   Use sheep wormers 

• Fasciolosis regionally common

•   Some owner’s unaware

•   Anaemia, ↓ Alb, ↑GGT.

•   Faecal sedimentation: beware false negatives!

•   Triclabendazole

•   Closuron 7mg/kg PO twice every 60 days

•   Albendazole 10- 20 mg/kg PO NOT CRIAS! - beware of toxicity 

• Adults more resistant than crias but stressed/immunocompromised

•   Eimera macusaniensis (“I-mac”): Long prepatent period (33 - 43 days), oocytes large, brown,

  thick walled and tear drop shape. Dramatic weight loss. Hypoalbuminaemia with normal

  PCV.

•   Cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis also.

•   Sulfonamides (sulfamethoxine 160mg/kg BID 5 days). Toltrazuril. 

• Mycoplasma haemolamae endemic globally. Healthy animals mount good immune response.

•   Diagnosis on FRESH blood smear. Wright’s geimsa stain- blue organisms on RBS surface.

•   Important differential for anaemia.

•   Oxytetracycline LA 20mg/kg q3d for 5 doses, treats but does not clear. 

• Sacroptes, Psoroptes, Chorioptes

•   Lesions inguinal, perineal, axilla, vetrum, inside forelimbs, (face and ears- esp. Psoroptes).

•   Pruritus, crusting, scaling, +/- 2ary pyoderma.

•   Skin scrapes

•   Sarcoptes: Ivermectin 0.5- 0.6mg/kg SC every 7- 10 days four times or bathe with Amitraz.

•   Other species: wash skin with Sebomild P (keratolytic/keratoplastic), rinse and apply

  fipronal. 2 or 3 times weekly for 3 weeks or more.

•   Zinc supplement if deficient 

•   Sucking lice: Injectable avermectins

•   Chewing lice: Topical treatment

  Ringworm: Griseofulvin 10 mg/kg, MalasebTM Dermatophilosis (Dermatophilos congalensus)

 Topical chlorhexadine or povidone iodine- remove crusts, penicillin 5-7 days. 

• Rule out other causes first

•   Allergen blood sample possible, can use hyposensitisation therapy. 

Tetanus

  Enterotoxaemia (Cl. perfringens type A): Pyrexia and profuse diarrhoea

•   (Malignant oedema/Braxy (Cl. septicum) in N and S America)

•   Vaccinate! – Protocol? Primary course at 4- 6 weeks then 2-3 weeks later, annual or bi-

  annual boosters, pregnant females vaccinated 4- 6 weeks before parturition. 

• Swellings +/- draining tracts. Fusobacterium Necrophorum and others.

•   Penicillin/cephlosporins +/- surgery
  

• A. pyogenes, Staph aureus.
  

• Pasteurella multocida, Maenhiemia haemolytica, (BRSV, PI3, BVD) 

• Streptococcus equi subsp zooepidemicus

    Acute, sub- acute and chronic disease possible.

•   Anorexia, recumbancy, pyrexia (≈41oC), +/- dyspnoea/ colic/ abdo pain

•   Sudden death

•   Die in 4 – 8 days

•   Antibiotics, fluids, NSAID, lance abscesses

•   Endemic in Peru

•   Zoonotic? Spread by horses? 

• 71 herds diagnosed infected nationally

•   Severe post mortem lesions

•   Chronic wasting +/- chronic cough +/- dyspnoea +/- diarrhoea

•   Intra-dermal test unreliable: Sensitivity 5%?!

•   Snap test- Chembio Rapid Stat TestTM: Sensitivity 68.8% Specificity 97.7%. Sensitivity

  improved by intra-dermal testin previous 10 – 30 days. Idexx test- similar.

•   X- ray diagnosis possible- whole herd screening

•   Not livestock so no mandatory testing and no compensation however infected herds may be

  placed under restriction. 

• Chronic wasting. Usually less than 2 years old.

•   Hypoprotienaemia. Terminally diarrhoea. 

• Infection from cattle or alpaca

•   Pathogenesis the same as cattle

•   Acute infection transitory ( pyrexia/anorexia/milk drop/ pneumonia)

•   Abort/stillbirth/PI’s/ mucosal disease – risk period during gestation unknown 

• Pyrexia, anorexia, vesicles- tongue, mouth, coronary band, interdigital space.

•   Notifiable, restrictions would apply in an outbreak, positives taken by ministry. 

•   Common. Stress related- Environmental, social, metabolic, 2ary to other Dz

•   C3 80% non- glandular, 20% glandular- ulcers occur at zone of demarcation.

•   C/signs vary with severity: Vague colic → peritonitis

•   Gastroscopy not possible, occult faecal blood unreliable

•   Thickened wall C3 on ultrasound

•   Treatment: Oral sucralphate, injectable H2 antagonist or proton pump inhibitor

•   Ruptured ulcer- surgery 

Sick Alpacas are often hyperglycaemic- DO NOT GIVE INSULIN!!