Re: [AlpacaTalk] Low milk production
My thoughts are to continue trying to bottle feed her. She's young
enough that she'll take to it. We used to have a dam who had low milk
production and had to supplement all of her crias. One of her daughters
also had low production, but not as low as her dam, and all of her
crias refused the bottle. I gave them ADEB12 paste weekly, and although
they were on the slim side compared to their pasturemates, they grew up
fine. After they started on hay and pellets, you'd never know their mom
had poor milk.
The orange poop is probably due to rich milk. The straining and
difficulty evacuating is something I notice a lot on many new crias. It
just takes them time to learn how to control everything! I wouldn't
worry that the cria is under mom too much, if mom lets her nurse,
that's a good thing!
We also had a small cria born on Friday to a first time dam. She was at
343 days gestation but cria's teeth weren't erupted and she only
weighed 12.6 lbs. On Sunday, she weighed 12.2 lbs. While we definitely
don't want crias losing weight, especially ones who are so small
starting out, it is not uncommon for babies to lose 5% of their birth
weight in the first week. So we're keeping a close eye on her and we'll
weigh her again daily to track. If she continues to lose, we'll start
bottle feeding her, too. Otherwise, she looks great (MRG female!) and
is already running around with the rest of the crias, who are all 2-3
times her size! You say your girl isn't thriving, is she lethargic and
dull? Babies often do sleep a whole lot for the first couple of weeks.
I don't have experience with Domperidone, but I think I've read that it
needs to be started a month or two before delivery? That may be totally
incorrect so hopefully someone with first-hand knowledge will report.
Heather
Heather Zeleny
White Lotus Alpacas
Creswell, OR
541.895.0964
Holistic Farm and Elite Fleece
http://www.whitelot
http://tech.
On Sep 29, 2008, at 4:16 AM, turkeycreekalpacas wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> We had a cria born on Thursday about noon who just isn't thriving.
> This was a first cria for the dam and took a little while to drop her
> milk (a few hours) - not surprising. She did appear to have colostrum
> and adequate milk when it arrived. However, the cria is not gaining
> weight. She was not a premie but on the smaller side - 13.2# and as
> of last night (day 4) is up to 13.8# - no gain at all during this
> day. She's not active like she should be and spends much more time
> than she should under mom. The dam's milk now seems to be lessening
> and very warm so I'm wondering if it's mastitus .. ?
>
> We do give our crias Ecolizer+C and have not had problems with
> diarrhea since we started using it a few years back. However, this
> little girl seems constipated and when she does evacuate her bowel,
> it's very liquidy and orange. I have not seen this before - any
> thoughts on this? We started supplementing her yesterday with whole
> milk and yogurt but she is not a willing subject! Others I've had to
> supplement were a bit more willing to take it (on the hungry side) so
> I'm a bit puzzled with this one.
>
> I will be calling the vet as soon as their office opens this AM and
> am going to track down some Domperidone.
>
> Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. My vet is wonderful
> and has been working with our farm for 7 years but I would not
> consider him a "camelid specialist" by any means and generally do our
> best to have suggestions ready when problems arise. The alpaca groups
> have been a huge help!
>
> Thanks, Liz Clark, Turkey Creek Alpacs, northern Indiana
> turkeycreek@
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posted by Chaddo at 9:27 AM
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