Saturday 5 May 2012

Exploring a new approach!


Getting a shot of Beck Brow Explorer in full fleece, and with all his red ribbons on display, is proving to be a bit of a challenge. Firstly living in Cumbria the opportunities are few and far between (it does rain rather often and if it isn't raining it is blowing a gale)...then we need 2 people at home...and Explorer does not like dressing up.

So today we siezed the moment...no rain...not much wind...and I had the idea that Explorer could be spared the dressing up if we placed his ribbons on a fence behind him...not a bad effort...except Velvet has managed to get in the shot!!!...maybe Photoshop will be able to sort that out?!

There hasn't been much crack to report of late (it was pointed out to me last week that crack is not universally understood to mean gossip...I looked it up in the dictionary...it is there; "northern dialect for gossip"...obviously not in the Australian dictionary!). I have been to Scotland to deliver 100 kilos of yarn to our weaver. As well as new scarf designs, we will be adding wraps and cushions to our collection. I have also collected some knitwear designed by the very talented Valarie Joyce...These will be on the website as soon as they have been photographed.

We did have another dog drama last week. We noticed that Tyke, our minature Yorkie, was behaving in a very similair way to how Velvet had behaved when poisoned. Recognising the signs, we got him to the vet sooner, but he also lost his sight and hearing, although he was not at the stage of fitting. He was given charcoal (to absorb the poison) and given intravenous fluids for 24 hours. Like Velvet he is now perfectly well again. However, the worry was that it obviously wasn't fungi that had poisoned Velvet and we didn't know what it was. The National Posions Agency was contacted. The conclusion that they have come to is that it is our wormer. The dogs eat the alpaca poo and digest the medication. We started using Cydectin 2% a couple of years ago when we had an outbreak of mites. It is long acting and covers the life cycle of the mite. However we will not be using this product in the future. It makes sense as we had wormed the 2 new females the day before Tyke took ill and we have checked our records and that would also fit with Velvet.

On the subject of poo...in order to spare my bad back, Paul has been doing most of the poo picking lately...it now seems that we need a new piece of kit...as it is 'ridiculous going around with a poover with so many alpacas'...I saw he was eyeing something up in the barn when we were at Bozedown Alpacas....something that goes on the back of a tractor...I hope that he isn't going to pretend he isn't going to enjoy poo picking in the future!

9 comments:

  1. How about waiting until Explorer has worked for the first time, then he will be as compliant as little lamb and have any amount of ribbons on, with the hope you will give him another girl - yes/no?!?

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  2. Useful information re the cydectin... ours also munch...

    Explorer is looking good and the fence seems a very good idea!

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  3. Yes, I agree with Jenny, let him have his way, that will get his ears up and pointing forward and bring out the real macho within!

    Interesting about the Cydectin. We use Noromectin which is probably similar and our dogs wolf down poo daily but they are a LOT bigger!

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  4. Poor Tyke, great detective work. Makes me think twice about using cydectin poo on my rubarb !

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  5. Hope Tyke is soon well again and has learned his lesson...alpaca poo is not dinner!!

    A big breeder advised to use Cydectin only against the real nasties that Ivomec won't zap. Thus we keep it in reserve in case we need to bring out "the big guns"! Apparently, some breeders choose it because, unlike Ivomec, it doesn't kill dung beetles...(though it's obviously not as kind to dogs!) As you say, other products don't have the long lasting effect against mites, (and I've been tempted to try it when mites are an issue), but many feel that's a small price to pay to have something powerful and effective in reserve to see off a really horrible parasite, like barbers pole, with! There are certainly lots of interesting debates on alpaca forums in US, NZ and Australia about Cydectin which back up the advice we have been given.

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  6. Many moons ago, when I had my friends horses on my land, she warned me about allowing my dogs in the pasture when they had wormed the horses - I never asked what the wormer was at the time because it wasn't relevant, so I am assuming this can be a problem with many different types of wormer and of course the effects will be exaggerated in a small dog. Poor things - but you are quite right, you can't stop them eating the poo!

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  7. Wow - thats an eye opener. Hope tyke is getting back to normal now. Shirley & Robbie

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  8. Would be interested to know more about your cydectin experience. I do not have a problem with worms (as pick up every day and have regular faecal egg counts done) but do have a mite presence. Cydectin is recommended by NSA for sheep scab as the incidence of resistence to the dectomax type drugs is a worry. What dosage of cydectin (Moxidectin)did you use? The recommendation seems to be 1ml/50kg to 3ml/50kgs. Many thanks, Anne

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    1. Hi Anne,

      the dose that we used against mites was 1 ml per 20kg injectable s/c this was combined with spraying between the toes with Eprinex 4% (mixed with maggot oil)or Frontline. This worked well for us for the mite issue, but three of our alpacas developed injection site abcesses. When these same alpacas had the problem again with the Cydectin 2% on another occasion, it confirmed our suspitions that it was the drug.

      I have heard of another breeder who has experienced the same problems. However, that said the three alpacas were all related, so it is possible that they have an allergy to something in the drug.

      We dont have a worm burden either, but like to treat our weanlings just in case. We are trialing oral Cydectin but will be keeping an eagle eye out for signs of mites.

      Good luck.

      Barbara

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