Finally, things are calming down again. Everybody is on the road to recovery. Nadia, as it turns out had scratched her eye. The cloudiness is now gone. Cartigan is doing much better. He still has a bit of a limp, but he is using the leg pretty regularly now, it will just take time to heal completely.
We’re working on a new theory with Jack. Another breeder asked about the possibility of a reoccurring abscess. It made sense. We may have been knocking an infection down with medication, but not knocking it out. He is now on penicillin long term, much to his dismay. Normally we would keep him on 10 days. Now we’re looking at a minimum of 20 days and possibly up to 4-6 weeks. He really hates the shots and does his damnedest to spit at me and kick me when I go to give it to him. But true to his sweet nature, if I don’t have a needle in my hand, he still wants his treats and kisses.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
May your life be interesting
Life had been rather dull around here. Which, in my mind, is not a bad thing. That all came to a screeching halt this week. To start with, we got our hay. Very good news, since we were out and working on borrowed bales. However, Mother Nature seem to think this was a sign to finally send rain. And wind. Everyday. Things are a bit damp out here but we missed the worse of Arizona’s weather as Flagstaff had four tornados touch down yesterday.
Sometime during the last round of storms to hit our area, Cartigan managed to injure one of his front legs. We checked him out and didn’t see any obvious signs of trauma, nor could I feel any swelling, heat or break. As best I could tell the pain was in his ankle area, probably a good sprain. We wrapped his leg in an ace bandage to help give him some extra support and he will now walk around slowly on it. Any faster speeds and he pulls it up and hops around on three legs. At this point all we can really do is try to support the leg as much as possible, try to keep him from jumping around and let time heal the injury.
Mean while, Nadia has developed a cloudy eye. Again, no obvious sign of injury and she is an older girl so this may be just a sign of old age. We flush it with saline daily. Next time Linda is out, I’ll have her take a look, but at the moment, it seems to be bothering me more than it is bothering Nadia.
The latest is Jack is having another one of his fever episodes this morning. As cool as it was yesterday I doubt it has anything to do with overheating. More than likely there is some other underlying chronic condition and we’ll just have to deal with this periodically for the rest of his life.
I’m beginning to understand why the Irish think the most powerful curse you can say to someone is “may your life be interesting…”
Sometime during the last round of storms to hit our area, Cartigan managed to injure one of his front legs. We checked him out and didn’t see any obvious signs of trauma, nor could I feel any swelling, heat or break. As best I could tell the pain was in his ankle area, probably a good sprain. We wrapped his leg in an ace bandage to help give him some extra support and he will now walk around slowly on it. Any faster speeds and he pulls it up and hops around on three legs. At this point all we can really do is try to support the leg as much as possible, try to keep him from jumping around and let time heal the injury.
Mean while, Nadia has developed a cloudy eye. Again, no obvious sign of injury and she is an older girl so this may be just a sign of old age. We flush it with saline daily. Next time Linda is out, I’ll have her take a look, but at the moment, it seems to be bothering me more than it is bothering Nadia.
The latest is Jack is having another one of his fever episodes this morning. As cool as it was yesterday I doubt it has anything to do with overheating. More than likely there is some other underlying chronic condition and we’ll just have to deal with this periodically for the rest of his life.
I’m beginning to understand why the Irish think the most powerful curse you can say to someone is “may your life be interesting…”
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Fall Festival 2010
The Fall Festival in Pinetop is behind us now. It went ok. It was quieter than last year; I guess the economy is still keeping people away. We still had a great time and did well for sales. It was nice to get out of the heat for a while.
A small farmers market that we had scheduled for this weekend was canceled because of the lack of participation, another sad note on the economy. Oh well, I could do with the rest.
We finally got a break in the heat. This week ahead is forecasted to be in the 80’s. It feels good to walk outside and not get slapped in the face by 105 degrees. The alpacas are enjoying the coolness as well. They are finally venturing away from the fans and coolers. Of course the drop in temperature has been accompanied by rain. I wouldn’t normally complain, we love rain, but we just got a load of hay and haven’t moved under the cover yet. There are tarps over it, but the bales still get damp, so we’ll need to uncover the stack and let everything dry out, and then restack it. Yippee.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
We're still here. Really!
Ok, ok, I know I've been lax about blogging lately, and this one will be very short. Suffice to say, all the critters are doing well. Jack had another bout with heat and this time he had a little bath buddy, as Linda had one of her boys out for us to nurse as well. Both came through with flying colors.
Work has suddenly gotten very busy and free time is at a minimum right now. Everything has been focused on keeping up while trying to get ready for the Pinetop Fall festival this weekend. Wish us luck!
Work has suddenly gotten very busy and free time is at a minimum right now. Everything has been focused on keeping up while trying to get ready for the Pinetop Fall festival this weekend. Wish us luck!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Heat stress and downer alpacas
Heat stress on our alpacas is something we are very aware of here in the desert Southwest. When temperatures in the summer time average over 100 degrees and can get well into the teens finding ways to keep cool has become an obsession. We have fans and swamp coolers going 24/7 on the barn. We place buckets of water in front of the coolers which provides the alpacas with cool drinking water even at the hottest part of the day.
Even so, occasionally an alpacas body temperature will climb for whatever reason, and when it goes way off kilter, they lose the ability to self regulate for a while. Also when their bodies reach an extremely high temperature for any period of time, a certain enzyme is release which causes muscle pain and weakness (think how achy you feel when you have the flu). The alpacas kush in response to this and often are not only unwilling, but unable to rise. Linda, our vet, believes that we lose more of the alpacas to complications that set in because they are down and cannot rise for such a long period of time than due to the initial heat stress that started the whole ball rolling in the first place.
Last summer she had us build her a walk in tub to treat one of her alpacas that had gone down to heat. It cooled the animal rapidly and allowed him to ease aching muscles and get his weight up off his legs. This helped get the stain off him and allowed him to lightly exercise his muscles while he was ill. The tub was big, ugly and leaked like sieve, but it did what it was designed to do and Luc pulled through.
After seeing what worked and didn’t work on that tub, Brian and his dad built a second one. Since we had more time to dedicate to this one, it came out much nicer. We even had it fiber-glassed to make it water tight. Then the tub was rolled away into the shop and forgotten about. Until this past Sunday, that is.
I went out to feed and check on the alpacas and found Jack down and not behaving like his normal self. I quickly checked his temperature and was shocked to see a reading of 106.9. Brian immediately rolled the tub over and we got him into it. Since the water coming out of our tabs is pretty warm in the summer, we added several frozen milk jugs into the tub. We got his temperature down and set him up in the section of the barn that remained the coolest, right in front of the swamp cooler vent.
We monitored his temperature closely and every time it approached 104, we got him back into the tub. We also started him on Naxcel as a preventative in case there was an infection of some sort that started the fever going. Jack never minded going into the tub, and a big bucket of hay kept him content enough for the 30 or so minutes we would have him in there. We began to notice that his body temperature was staying lower for longer after each bath. By Wednesday, his temperature was staying in a normal range without the aid of the Paca-spa, as we are now calling the tub. Thursday evening, we let him back in with his buddies. We’re still monitoring his temperature throughout the day and at any sign of a fever, we’ll get right back into our routine, but it seems the Paca-spa has once again done its job. I’m convinced it save Jack a world of hurt, if it hasn’t in fact saved his life. As far as I’m concerned, that spa is worth its weight in gold!
Even so, occasionally an alpacas body temperature will climb for whatever reason, and when it goes way off kilter, they lose the ability to self regulate for a while. Also when their bodies reach an extremely high temperature for any period of time, a certain enzyme is release which causes muscle pain and weakness (think how achy you feel when you have the flu). The alpacas kush in response to this and often are not only unwilling, but unable to rise. Linda, our vet, believes that we lose more of the alpacas to complications that set in because they are down and cannot rise for such a long period of time than due to the initial heat stress that started the whole ball rolling in the first place.
Last summer she had us build her a walk in tub to treat one of her alpacas that had gone down to heat. It cooled the animal rapidly and allowed him to ease aching muscles and get his weight up off his legs. This helped get the stain off him and allowed him to lightly exercise his muscles while he was ill. The tub was big, ugly and leaked like sieve, but it did what it was designed to do and Luc pulled through.
After seeing what worked and didn’t work on that tub, Brian and his dad built a second one. Since we had more time to dedicate to this one, it came out much nicer. We even had it fiber-glassed to make it water tight. Then the tub was rolled away into the shop and forgotten about. Until this past Sunday, that is.
I went out to feed and check on the alpacas and found Jack down and not behaving like his normal self. I quickly checked his temperature and was shocked to see a reading of 106.9. Brian immediately rolled the tub over and we got him into it. Since the water coming out of our tabs is pretty warm in the summer, we added several frozen milk jugs into the tub. We got his temperature down and set him up in the section of the barn that remained the coolest, right in front of the swamp cooler vent.
We monitored his temperature closely and every time it approached 104, we got him back into the tub. We also started him on Naxcel as a preventative in case there was an infection of some sort that started the fever going. Jack never minded going into the tub, and a big bucket of hay kept him content enough for the 30 or so minutes we would have him in there. We began to notice that his body temperature was staying lower for longer after each bath. By Wednesday, his temperature was staying in a normal range without the aid of the Paca-spa, as we are now calling the tub. Thursday evening, we let him back in with his buddies. We’re still monitoring his temperature throughout the day and at any sign of a fever, we’ll get right back into our routine, but it seems the Paca-spa has once again done its job. I’m convinced it save Jack a world of hurt, if it hasn’t in fact saved his life. As far as I’m concerned, that spa is worth its weight in gold!
Monday, July 12, 2010
time goes by
So it’s been a while since I’ve up dated the blog. We’ve been pretty busy. We’ve completed both the Show Low Days and The Northern AZ Arts shows. We had a great time at booth, and now we’re completely pooped. Brian and I decided to take this past weekend off and just relax. We took in a movie in Casa Grande. Had a bit of a hick-up when I tried to use AMC passes at a Harkins theater. Oopsie. Well that did explain the odd look I got as I handed the passes through the window.
June was really hot and July is shaping up to be more of the same. The swamp coolers have been going 24/7 for a while now. I know they are providing some relief as I’ll come home in the afternoon, and you wouldn’t know there was an alpaca on the place. They are all in the barns letting the cool air (ok, so it’s still 90 degrees, but it’s cool relative to the outside temp.) flow over them. Those big swamp coolers are a god send. We still go out and hose the ‘pacas of once or twice a day to help cool them, though I’m not sure how helpful it really is since the critters run right out into the sun to bake after they get their bellies wet.
Only another 8 weeks or so till cooler weather! Fall is right around the corner.
June was really hot and July is shaping up to be more of the same. The swamp coolers have been going 24/7 for a while now. I know they are providing some relief as I’ll come home in the afternoon, and you wouldn’t know there was an alpaca on the place. They are all in the barns letting the cool air (ok, so it’s still 90 degrees, but it’s cool relative to the outside temp.) flow over them. Those big swamp coolers are a god send. We still go out and hose the ‘pacas of once or twice a day to help cool them, though I’m not sure how helpful it really is since the critters run right out into the sun to bake after they get their bellies wet.
Only another 8 weeks or so till cooler weather! Fall is right around the corner.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
A pretty, gery box
Swamp coolers, while being very effective in our dry desert heat, are not really very attractive. The new swamp cooler on the barn is basically a big grey metal box.
My father in law decided that this just would not do, and dressed it up a bit.
Now we have the only alpaca weathervane in the State of Arizona that I know of. It can tell us from what direction the 110 degree heat will be blowing in from this weekend. Yeehaa.
Not that I’ll be here for the 110. I’m headed up to the high country for Show Low Days this weekend.
My father in law decided that this just would not do, and dressed it up a bit.
Now we have the only alpaca weathervane in the State of Arizona that I know of. It can tell us from what direction the 110 degree heat will be blowing in from this weekend. Yeehaa.
Not that I’ll be here for the 110. I’m headed up to the high country for Show Low Days this weekend.
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