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.
4 comments:
Sometimes thiamine deficiency is caused by some sort of gut upset. You could try a spit transfer to put healthy bacteria into his gut. Sounds gross but it may help and definately cant hurt him. Email pamas@bigpond.com
Some other things you may want to consider with Crissy in addition to the levels of thiamine in mineral supplements is considering and increase in vitamins A,D and E. You indicated that this is more common in the winter, and Vit D levels in some animals struggle to maintain themselves at sufficient levels to assist with thiamine absorption. Also certain parasite levels (coccidia by example) consume thiamine on occasion faster than it can be produced. While coccidia in low levels is generally considered a 'self-managing' parasite, the levels any given animal can manage will vary animal by animal for reasons not really understood. Might be worth checking.
Thank you both Pepperina Girl and Gary & Chloe for your info. I will definitely talk to my vet about what you both said. I know she will be very interested.
Thanks for this. I really like what you've posted here and wish you the best of luck with this blog and thanks for sharing. Alpaca Vitamin Supplement
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