A three month old female cria came in to the yard yesterday looking very queer, holding its head on one side and having trouble with its balance. Our ever cheerful but doom laden vet John came to see her in the afternoon. His view was that it was either an inner ear infection that he could not see with the ear thingy (not too bad) or meningitis (very bad) or a brain abscess (extremely bad). The brain thing made him very enthusiastic as he had been reading about a case in America where the alpaca had an MRI scan and then they performed heroic surgery.
This little girl gazes up at you in the most endearing way but became extremely stressed when examined, mouth breathing and curling her head right back. It was decided to give her a steroid to minimise any swelling and put her on a course of heavy duty antibiotics that cross the blood brain barrier. This was done as quickly as possible with her mother close by and then the two of them went out into the birthing field as it is nearest to the house and the office. We will have to make sure she has as little contact as possible with humans, just the daily jab, to keep the stress levels low. Apart from being lopsided, the cria seems quite perky, is eating hay and grass and suckling and is a good weight for her age.
Meanwhile my Pandora continues to improve. She has stopped sitting on her side and twitching a back leg which they do with abdominal pain and now cushes like a normal alpaca and is eating grass like a good ‘un.