The Poop, the whole poop and nothing but the poop!
Potty
Training
Training your alpacas to void where you want them to. instead of where they choose, will promote a healthy herd.
Equipment:
- We use a shrub rake from Wal Mart, black plastic rake with a wooden handle, and about 4 feet long.
- We also use a big red scooper from Home Depot utility cleaning supply area to collect in the field and transfer to the wheelbarrow.
When the new alpacas arrive or when you are doing pasture rotation this information will come in handy! Before even letting your alpacas off the trailer get a clean coffee can and collect an ample amount of their poop. Having already picked a spot or two in their new pasture that is high, dry and gets lots of sunlight daily place your aforementioned purloined poop there!
If not, they will invariably go in the worst possible spot. “Parasitic larva in manure in the sunlight dries out and is very susceptible to desiccation in 3-4 days, while larva in moist, damp, dark areas will survive for months.” From Dr. Evans 3rd Edition Alpaca Field Manual pg 150. (A must have book you can order by calling Dr. Norman Evans company, Lama Wellness at 1-877-362-6676.)
Cleaning Pastures
We clean out pastures daily, twice a day in the summer months. Yes, this is over the top but when we went to "Alpacas 101" in 1997 the vet said “Clean your pastures every day and don’t dribble any on your way out!” I took this as gospel and have done what he said and more ever since. Some owners clean every three days or so but since alpacas only go in a few spots in the pasture when they return to their bathroom I don’t want them to step in anything and carry it out to where they eat and possibly causing parasite infection.
We now run our own fecal analysis at Touch of Heaven alpaca farm just one mile away. Owner Anne Stone has set up a state of the art lab in her barn vet room. Our vets started charging $17.00 to $25.00 per sample and we were getting false negatives due to their not centrifuging. Now we don’t have negatives as that error could wipe out the alpacas natural resistance to parasites. A number of the de-wormers we, as an industry, have used in the past, are no longer effective through over use, resulting in the parasites becoming resistant and passing this resistance to their offspring which are legion. Two examples are Dectomax and Ivomec, These now only work for Meningeal worm at 1cc’s per 70 pounds. We treat every 40 days when the host and snails and slugs are around. A pan of cheap beer put out for a couple for a couple of days, will tell you when slugs and snails are present.
Use De-wormers for other parasites. These go by names like the White De-wormers, Panacur, Valbazen, Safeguard. These and their dosages can be found in Dr. Evans book. They are for regular worms, tapes, strongylus, nematodes etc.
Dr. Evans book has an entire section on the coccidian E-Mac and recently at a seminar he said “This is not in the books yet, for E-Mac after the 5 day on 5 day off 5 days on treatment re-treat after 21 days for 5 days.” Dr. Evans book says he finds E-Mac in 40% of the fecal tests that he is running and at his seminar at the Southern Select Show March 2010 said that it is killing a lot of alpacas and llamas. Having very healthy animals on a good nutrition program helps immensely when any problem arises.
The University of GA, Athens, did a great full day seminar “Camelids under the Microscope” presented by the Small Ruminant Club, The Southeastern Alpaca Assoc. and eight generous alpaca sponsors. We recommend that you attend as many of these seminars as you can. Prior knowledge is a powerful tool to have.
I could go on and on about poop, Dr. Evans refers to me as “The Poop Lady” affectionately I hope. We use to mail him our samples.
So read, study, observe your animals, run tests. They (the vets) say 20% of your animals carry 80% of the load, identify those and put them in their own pasture, not boys and girls together of course, put de-hydrated lime on their clean poop piles and keep down the spread of disease and parasites.
Oh I almost forgot, Clean Up! We have a pump and French drain on the far side of the barn away from the alpaca pastures. It has great water pressure and I blast our equipment with the hose, wheels on the wheelbarrows too, then splash some bleach on it all and blast it again, then put it out in the sun for further purification. We may call it beans, but friends, this is do-do.
If you learn new information please share it with me, new information comes out all the time. Write to me about collecting samples protocol.
Best Regards,
Nancy Rondeau
Bedford Falls Alpaca Farm
E mail: alpacas@bfaf.com
Web:
www.bfaf.com
