Christopher Gold had thiamine deficiency earlier this month. I caught it in the very early stages. It was the weekend & I was already out in the barn cleaning up manure. He kept humming over & over which he normally
is a "talker" but this was not normal so I stopped & watched him. His legs were trembling & his head was starting to tremble also. I felt pretty confident that it was thiamine deficiency again as he had it twice last winter. I went in the house & got the thiamine & gave him a shot of 2cc. He is easy to handle & since he was unsteady & kinda woozy it was easy to corner him, get him haltered & tie him so I could give him the shot. Within an hour there was definite improvement & about 4 hours later you wouldn't even have known. Thank goodness it's a quick and easy fix & I keep thiamine on hand. He is the only one of my alpacas that gets this & so far it has only been in the winter. Here he just wanted to sit & look out the barn door. I had given him his shot but it hadn't had time to take effect yet. Poor Chrissy.
Thiamine deficiency (it's not known what causes it) makes them act very "drunken".....dizzy & it will make them go blind. It can be reversed though, luckily. A friend of mine had a llama that had it & had pretty much completely lost his eyesight. She thought for sure he was going to die but he didn't, he made a full recovery.
Next post, my Christmas present.
TTFN.
