Llama lungs

[Lauri & The Gang]

I posted awhile back about getting a friends deceased llama to feed to the dogs. I cut up and packaged the liver, lungs and kidneys. I mixed a little bit of each part in a container so I had a variety of things to feed. Little did I know that stuff would mean the difference between life and death for one of my Chinese Crested puppies!

At the beginning of the month we had our annual 'kennel' inspection. The guy comes and looks around our house and that's it.

6 days later Wasabi, the little cirl CC, got sick. Loose stool, loss of appetite and some vomiting.

Anything with those symptoms I treat as Parvo. She recovered quickly and was fine.

About 5 days after SHE recovered the boy, CJ, came down with the same symptoms. We did the same treatments for him and for awhile he seemed to be stable. Then one day we woke up and he had crashed during the night.

Sub-q fluids and colloidal silver enemas every 4 hours were the only things that kept him alive.

Once his vomiting stopped I tried EVERYTHING to get him to eat. Fresh goats milk, crappy canned cat food, fresh meat, green tripe, eggs (raw and cooked) - but he would not eating anything.

Before he got sick he weighed maybe 5 pounds. He lost almost 3 pounds during his illness! He was a walking skeleton and getting food into him was a priority.

A friend said to try liver water. Boil some liver in water and syringe feed the water. The liver is high in Vit B which helps increase the appetite.

I remembered the packages of llama organs so I defrosted one of those. CJ turned his nose up at the fresh liver so I decided to try cooking some. I was trying to pick the liver out of the container when some lung slipped from my hand and landed on the floor. CJ walked over and sniffed it and suddenly ... SLURP!! It was gone and he walked up and wanted more!!

I really think that if it hadn't been for the lungs we would have ended up having to hospitalize him to have him feed via tube just to get his strength back up.

The little buggers are completely fine now but it was VERY touch and go with CJ. For a couple days there I was sure I would wake up to find a dead puppy.

[Jax08]

How awful Laurie! Can you make the kennel inspectors take off their shoes? Wear paper booties? Anything like that to protect your babies?

[sparra]

Originally Posted by Lauri & The Gang

I posted awhile back about getting a friends deceased llama to feed to the dogs. I cut up and packaged the liver, lungs and kidneys. I mixed a little bit of each part in a container so I had a variety of things to feed.

I remembered the packages of llama organs so I defrosted one of those. CJ turned his nose up at the fresh liver so I decided to try cooking some. I was trying to pick the liver out of the container when some lung slipped from my hand and landed on the floor. CJ walked over and sniffed it and suddenly ... SLURP!! It was gone and he walked up and wanted more!!

Do you guys have hydatid tapeworm in the U.S?

[JakodaCD OA]

llamas are notorious for getting mengele (not sure I'm spelling that right) worm..I have no idea if it affects meat/organs when fed to other animals.

Know about it, because a friend of mine has or should I say 'had' a pack of llamas they all passed from mengele worm

[msvette2u]

Meningeal.

[sparra]

So you don't get hydatid's?? They effect pretty much most "grazing" type herbivores like sheep, cattle, goats, kangaroos and camelids.
Nasty, nasty things....

[Lauri & The Gang]

It looks like the incidence of Hydatids is very low in the US. I did some Googling and looked at the images and I can say that the llama's lungs and liver looked VERY clean - nothing like the images showing the cysts.