I hope I'm just being alarmist here. I had a cria born last year, I
think 10 days overdue so also not a preemie. Normal birth weight. She
was up and nursing right on schedule, walking on schedule... But her
bottom lip looked not quite right. Not exactly swollen but not right.
On day two, she was down. dehydrating, not nursing... Our vet said
"Take her to OSU (Oregon State for us), there's probably not a lot I
can do, they go downhill fast. So we went, and dying baby had enough
fight in her to make inserting the IV into her jugular very difficult,.
took at least 30 minutes!
But, her bloods were waaaaaaay off. White cells were initially high,
but that was false because of her dehydration. Once she was hydrated,
her white cells were found to be very low. She was hyperemic... I think
that means low kidney function.. gums were red, that frightening red
line was threatening to show. Calcium was insanely high on both she and
her dam, they'd never seen calcium levels that high before.
They ran tests for lots of stuff... bloodwork for infections/sepsis...
came back clean. Fecals came back clean. It took a week of monitoring
and tube feeding at OSU, and $3000 later, she is very healthy today. No
idea what caused her scary and expensive start. She and dam were on
Nexcel for the week and we had to continue them for cria for another
two weeks after she came home. I know, everyone will say you shouldn't
give Naxcel to crias as it's somehow harmful to the immunity they may
have achieved. But my cria obviously had no immunity at that point.
Yours probably doesn't have much at this point, either regardless of
whether she's ingested adequate colostrum.
So my advice is to have a full blood panel done, and make sure the cria
gets her nutrition! Bottle feed if you have to, or if she really starts
to slide, take her and dam to the nearest Vet Med hospital. With crias,
though you can't wait long. If I had waited even another day I am
pretty sure my lovely girl wouldn't be here today.
Best of luck! Get that blood work done and make sure she gets food!
Heather
Heather Zeleny
White Lotus Alpacas
Creswell, OR
541.895.0964
Holistic Farm and Elite Fleece
http://www.whitelotusalpacas.com
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AlpacaTalk/join
On Sep 3, 2008, at 5:23 PM, bntruble wrote:
> Hi guys...
>
> As I've said a million times, I'm fairly new to this industry. Don't
> have much to offer as far as advice here, but I do have a few
> questions. I hope you guys don't mind. It's nice to know that there
> is a place newbies like myself can turn to for help...
>
> We had a cria born last night around 6:00 p.m. She came out very
> small, she's not thin,she's very small, and she appears to be very
> weak. She couldn't stand at all for the first 6 hours of her life,
> which as I understand it, can be fairly common. She sort of lied on
> her side like she was dead. She was responsive, but just lied
> there. She couldn't get up, so we had to feed her colostrum <sp?>
> through a syringe at first, then through a bottle, so she knows how
> to suck. We gave her colostrum suppliment also, and a colostrum
> gel. No one in this area does igG testing, I called every large
> animal vet in the area, and no one here does it, so I have no idea
> what her levels are like. Her behavior over the last 24 hours hasn't
> changed much. She still spends alot of time on her side, she is
> eating, still through a bottle. We cannot get her to nurse at all
> off mom. She's not interested in feeding from mom at all. She'll
> get up and stand, but only when encouraged by people to do so. She
> wasn't "premature", she was born a day before her due date. She is
> so different from our last cria. Our last cria was up and moving
> around within an hour. This just doesn't seem to be normal behavior
> from a cria, but I'm not really sure what to do with her. Like I
> said, she just sort of lays lifeless, and doesn't do much. When she
> does get up, she only wanders a little bit, and goes right back
> down. She weighs 15 lbs. Any help guys? Anyone had this before?
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Message posts are the opinion of individuals posting and are not necessarily endorsed or approved by Yahoo! or the moderator of this group. The purpose of this discussion group is to ensure that all points of view can be aired. It is the responsbilty of all individuals who post to treat others with respect and civility.
