Thanks Carolyn,
I use Dr Evans minerals so I would hope and assume the selenium would be
there, but I will check the composition again; also giving an alpaca
feed (Southern States) that he told me years ago was his formula (and
Southern States orders in especially for me), so again I would hope that
nutritionally they should be in pretty good shape. I am a nutritionist
myself so am pretty careful about my animals' diets.
Vet?! My vet never even did a fecal, proper or not. I haven't used a
vet in the past several years. He was never able to save a baby, nor
was he able to do anything to help my Charlie Brown and after I
requested an autopsy and he came without even telling me he was here,
cut him open, and then left him lying out in the front pasture with his
guts hanging out for me and my children to have to look at until I could
find someone to come dig a really big hole and didn't even talk to me at
all.....I had to call him to see what he found out. He gave me some
vague intestinal obstruction answer and a shrug when I asked what could
have caused that - "it happens". Well I haven't called a vet since.
I've tried a few other vets around here for our horses; one was totally
useless in a colic situation, and neither were interested in working
with alpacas - quite rude about it in fact, saying that llama/alpaca
people were "unreasonable". I've given up vets. I have other holes to
throw my money into.
As far as the dead leaves and your friend not being worried about
them.....I don't know and we need to get some definitive answers, but
the tree guy that seemed to know the most about these cherry trees (the
one from Texas) said that they are the first to shed their leaves and
that basically once they had produced their cherries (right now) they
will start dropping leaves and the cyanide is concentrated in the dead
leaves. But I will also say that all my alpacas have been in this same
pasture for 8 yrs and it has only been in the past 2-3 yrs that I have
been having these deaths. But then again, they only had one pregnancy
resulting in a somewhat successful birth (that alpaca is still alive) in
all those years also. That baby was born 5 yrs ago and had severe
problems, didn't think he would make it, had to tube feed him for
several days and he appeared to be paralyzed in his hind quarters, but
after a few days he pulled it together and today is my Charlie Brown's
only living baby. He has all the personality of his dad and is sweet
and cute as a button. After not being able to use his hind legs at all
for his first few days on earth he now is my dancer. He literally
stands on those back legs to reach the highest branches of our privit
and sweet gum that he loves to eat. He is also the lover of the wild
cherry sawdust. If I lose him, I will give up.
I would be most delighted to learn these trees are not the problem; I
can certainly walk the wooded pastures and pick up any fallen limbs etc.
If the dead leaves on the ground are not a problem, hallelujah. Again,
I hate to cut the mature trees out and be constantly dealing with the
regrowth basically forever.
so I guess where we are now is to get some confirmation about the
toxicity of the dead leaves; fallen branches with wilted leaves can be
managed.
And I hear you all loud and clear about the cherry lumber vs firewood!
Funny I never put it together, duh - cherry wood of course is quite
valuable.
Thanks again, Janice
<<Posted by: "sesamedame@aol.com" sesamedame@aol.com the_alpacarosa
Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:16 am (PDT)
Hi Janice, Other thought I had is that you possibly have some
deficiencies in the diets??? I know that low selenium will cause
prematurity and
other birthing and pregnancy issues. Have you had fecals properly
floated and
spun? You would need to check with your vet. Not all vets do a proper
fecal check if they're not experienced with camelids. If not done properly,
the vet will miss a potentially dangerous situation.
You could be having a combination of parasite and nutritional issues??
I know of a farm that had several wild cherries in their pastures and a herd
of 30+ animals with no poisoning issues. Their only real precaution with
the leaves was to pick up any fallen brances, etc. following storms.
They felt that the danger wasn't in fall leaves dropping, just green leaves
fallen and wilting on the ground.
I don't know this for fact, not a vet or ag specialist....just passing on
what worked for our friends' farm. Perhaps you should check into this with
your ag agent.
Personally, I'd look into harvesting the trees for lumber. I know we
harvested some when we built our house and got some very nice cherry and oak
lumber for my husband to use for furniture building.
Laurel's right about not letting nice timber get cut up into fire wood!
Carolyn Marquette,
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