A flashback..., no not the alpacastud Flashback!
A few good cria were born last month. No problems what so-ever...
Yesterday we had our first show. We had never shown our animals because we thought we only wanted to show winning material.
And so we did. CME Lysander ET became Grand Champion Beige / Fawn at the Germany West-show in Krefeld. And his halfsister became first in her class.
The competion was hard in every class. Almost all alpacas had extreme quality. If you see the progress which has been made in the last three years at shows in the Benelux and Germany...! It is unbelieveble - lots of excellent imports were done... Now we will have to breed the same quality ourselves (that will be more difficult than buying a excellent animal).
Of the six classes in Krefeld - three were won by the Dutch (that does say something about the progress there's made in the last year). 1 class was won by a college (DVM) from Belgium and two classes (and the Supreme Champion) were won by one and the same farm from Germany.
We were totally happy - 2 alpacas - 2 first in class and 1 Grand Champion. What better start with our showteam could we wish......
THEN CAME THIS HORRIBLE MORNING! Arunvale Wasaki. One of our best females was down in the field. She couldn't get on her feet. Her colour was pale. She had lost a lot of blood or was getting into a shock. Immediate action was taken. In 10 minutes we had a bag of blood from one of the donors (by Marieke and Gemma). In the meantime Mandy and me (Leo) were getting Wasaki on a car/tractor out of the field. We tried to gave her the bloodtransfusion and something against the anafylactic shock which sometimes occur.
After half an hour she gave up. Leaving us devestated (with a half empty bag of blood) behind. What happened here??? Saterday she looked a little bit slower, but she ate very well. She had a good weight (67 kg) last week. She was treated against coccidia with Vecoxan and furthermore she got panacur-pills (fenbendazole) and Levamisole (injections) against worminfections over the last few weeks...
No price at a show makes this lost ok!
Probably it was an aneurisma or another kind of bleeding in her belly. Ulcera? Torsi of the Uterus? We would like to get an object pathologic finding, so we brought her to dr. Dorresteijn which is known for his good diagnosis in alpacadeaths in The Netherlands and Belgium. We could have done it ourselves, but I was to emotional to do it right (and we are not specialized in pathology).
We hopefully hear something tomorrow of dr. Dorresteijn.
What a bloody shame and a f...... waste. Whithin 3 months after importing her to The Netherlands she died. She was the mother of Quickstep who won her class yesterday and she was carrying another Jaquinto cria. When shit happens, it happens very shit!!!
So this were the emotions of the last few days - from totally happy till broken down... Fortunatly we have other girls / boys for our 2010 showteam. WE WILL BE BACK! BETTER AND STRONGER!!!
Thanks for the lovely mails from our alpacafriends we already recieved. It is still a great happy (alpaca) family in The Netherland, Belgium, Germany and the UK. It seems to me that it is important to share information with our alpacafriends so we can all learn something from these sort of horrible deaths...
We will try to post a newsletter on a veterinary topic (of alpacas) every week from now.
Wishing you and your alpacas good health...,
Leo van Merwijk (DVM)
Alpacas of the Lowlands
