Health concerns for my new camel

[camelidman]

I'm pretty new to camels, although have plenty of experience with other members of the camelidae family, primarily alpacas and llamas, but also to a lesser extent guanaco and vicunas.
I've recently acquired two bactrian camels. One male, aged 2 years, but really large for his age, a superb specimen, and the other a younger female who I more recently took on and who I have reason to believe was mistreated since birth and was certainly the most junior of the five camels she was kept with, so it's likely she didn't get her share of granulated feed, supplement or hay.

The female is the one I have concerns about. She is aged 14 months, and appears to be suffering from malnutrition. Her humps are almost non existent, as they lay flat to her back, her ribs and hips protrude and can be clearly seen through her thick coat (I dread to imagine what she'll look like in a month or so when she's lost her coat).

I've approached my vet. Who agrees with my concerns and has suggested an observed regimen of feeding, but I sense it's more of a 'watch and wait' idea.
I've recently administered a double dose Panacur to attempt to manage any possible whipworm infestation. She has permanent access to a good quality competition horse granulated feed as well as good grass hay and fresh green grass. She has salt blocks, equine blocks and loose salt, but I see little evidence of her touching any of them. She eats the fresh grass, but shows no interest at all in the hay. She also never approaches the granules, unless I take the bucket to her and stick it under her nose, and even then she only takes a few small amounts, then wanders off.

She reminds me of a very shy child that daren't take any food for risk of upsetting someone.

I'm doing a lot of work with the male, who I take away from her for at least two hours a day for walks with my llamas and clicker training classes. While he's away she paces along the fence line and doesn't eat a thing.

Other than the above, doesn't seem to be lacking energy, in terms of her ability to get around the fields and my farm.

The one exception to the eating concerns I have for her are her ability to consume any number of carrots and apples I can offer her. I now feed her 5 apples and a similar number of large carrots per day. Also, on the selenium front: her granulated feed includes 10%, as does the equine block, but as I mentioned before, she's not particularly shown an interest in either, so I don't think she's getting much. I

I'm sorry for the rambling post. If anyone has any advice for this novice camel keeper, please let me know.

[3droms]

That sounds frustrating. If my camels had all that choice they wouldn't know where to start so I have no experience with this and can only guess.

If she is keen on the apples and carrots then maybe you could cut them up and mix them through the ganules and see if that encourages her to eat it. If it is the hand feeding that she likes maybe you could try handfeeding the granules and the hay to start her off.
Maybe you could reward her with the apples when she eats the hay or granules if you think that she is stressed about upsetting someone.
My camels loooooooooooooooove oats and molasses (together it is a dream come true). Maybe you could buy small bags of different foods and see if there is something she particularly likes. Then you can mix that with the granules.
In terms of the equine block, my camels did not initially like any of the vitamin supplements we tried to give them (except one we bought which was a block and contained molasses. Then we were concerned about how much they were eating). They learnt to like them. Mind you we now give them humavyte and it stinks so it probably would take some getting used to. We mix their vitamins with wheat flakes and water. They will eat anything mixed with wheat bix.

Just as a side note if she has a whipworm problem - we have found that one double dose treatment may not be enough. We were told to double dose (at least) for 3 days minimum, 5 days ideally. We have had constant problems with the weight of one of our camels even though we wormed him regularly (monthly). An egg count is the best way to go.

[camelidman]

Thanks 3droms.
I really like the idea of rewarding the consumption of granulated foods with an apple or two. I think this may be the way to go and I intend to start this afternoon.
My vitamin/mineral blocks smell pretty awful too, so yes, I guess it's pretty understandable that she's not too keen, although she's also not really touched the salt block or loose salt either, which is a bit of a worry for me.
This morning when I first went out to see her I noticed that she's been suffering from diarrhea during the night and is still up until now. For the moment I hope it's related to her movement to new pasture, as I'm desperate for it to not be a symptom of her general state of health. Have you ever experienced diarrhea on new grass? I've seen it with alpacas in the past, and my cows and goats are the same, but I've not heard of it with camels...
On the worming solution front, I've just relayed your advice to my vet and he has agreed that I can persist with the administration of Panacur mixed in their drinking water for the new few days. Thanks again for that.

[ivieacres]

Using beet pulp (needs to be in water for a while befor giving) puts on weight. You can mix anything with it, because by itself it is not appealing. As far as selenium, I went to the animal feed store to get a selenium suppliment for my camel. I have decided because of the cost, I am going to get a prescription from my vet for BOSE, we used it on our alpacas before they made it a prescribed med. Then we were sure they got their selenium. I would possibly get your vet to come out and do a shot for worming, that should get right to the problem. They can use a stronger dewormer that we have excess to.

[ivieacres]

Look at the regular website camelphotos.com and click on CARE. There is an article by Dr. Wright on whip worms and selenium---its called Basic Camel Health?

[3droms]

It is possible that the diarrhoea is caused by new grass. Lush grass causes our camels to do soft poo.

Our camels only eat salt every now and again. Sometimes I mix salt into one of their water troughs. They like that alot. We make sure they always have fresh water as well when we give them salted water even though they always drink the salted water in preference.

[camelidman]

Thanks guys.
The responses from both of you have been really useful.
I've had another visit from my vet today. To be honest, I'm losing confidence in him a little, as he tends to be easily led and is wary of making any commitments to me as far as real advice is concerned, but where I am there's little camel expertise, so I guess beggars can't be choosers...
3droms, I've followed your advice on the apple feeding front (you suggested giving an apple or two as praise for eating 'boring food'). It's worked wonders. Only a day after I started doing it, she's now munching away as soon as she sees me enter their pen, then after a few minutes of feeding she looks up at me for the apple. She also seems much keener to get stuck in to the grass in the field. Her diarrhea seems to have passed, and she's even going for the salt and equine blocks (the only slight problem with that, is that she only does so when I'm holding them, meaning that I end up with sore arms after she's licked them both (the equine block is 10 kilos, and the salt block is 15 kilos) for 5 minutes or so - I'm hopeful that this will pass in a few days (or my muscles will develop!) - I'm not complaining though, it's all good news).
I received some advice from a vet friend of mine based in France. He's not a camel specialist, but knows vicunas and guanacos pretty well (we were at university together and he dragged me around South America some years ago while he was on his post grad year and was working with them in the wild, so I'm pretty confident in him). He suggested soya to help bulk her up a bit. I'm going to investigate later today when I visit the feed merchants. But I also like the idea of beet pulp. Seems like it'd be pretty easy for me to throw together, thanks for that ivieacres.
I'm also going to speak with my vet about an injectable vermifuge. I'll also try a selenium injection, but I think I'll get some blood work done first, as I'm not entirely sure about the selenium content in our pasture, so I don't want to risk giving too much.
Finally, my male now has really bad diarrhea, so this has made me feel more confident that it is related to the grass and not her state of health. His though is much worse than hers was, so I'll keep an eye on that...

[Kameldame]

I hope she is doing already a little bit better and starts to eat more.
It is good to deworm but it is even better to know against what you want to deworm. One of the most serious problems we see in the camels are gastrointestinal parasites.Some dewormer are better then other for specific parasites and not everything gets killed by one specific dewormer. Ask your vet to run a fecal- Identification on both of your animals, so you know what you are dealing with and to choose the right drug.
I was wondering about the dosages used. It was said double the dose, but which dose are you using? I would be more interested to know how much you are giving per kg or lbs. If you use Panacur for cameldis I advise to give 20mg/kg orally, but if you have specific parasite eggs such as Nematodirus, you can increase it up to 50mg/kg (these parasite are very harmful) and for thise parasite I would give it for several days.
If she has parasites she is possibly anemic aswell. You suggested blood work and that is an excellent idea. It would be good to run a chemistry profile as well as a hemogram. Vitamin B is very important for the generation of new red blood cells. You can give her a orall supplement (such as Vitaplex) which has vitamin B and other vitamins as well as a small amount of iron in it. You also could give her for a few days some Vit B complex injections under the skin (she might dont like that).
It sounds like your girl has for a while problems, and in those cases it is also good to check the thyroid levels (free T4 and freeT3 as well as total T3 and T4). Most of the times they are low and supplementation can be very beneficial.If you live in the USA: Michigan State University runs the panel and usually you will get it back within 7 days. If you need normal values I can send you some form a publication.
I hope she is getting better! Good luck

[camelidman]

I've just finished reading your comments, Kameldame.
Thank you for taking the time to give me such a detailed response.
I've called my vet and passed on the information you give me to him (I'm English and I live in France, and while my French is pretty good, I had some minor problems passing the more technically complicated information over to him!). He's going to try to come to visit later today with the necessary vials for the blood tests. I'd already requested fecal tests, which were taken on Wednesday, but I've not had the results back yet. I'll be sure to check for the specific parasites you mentioned in the results. Thanks again.
On another note, I've had a private message sent through this site, which I found really helpful. It was from someone that keeps several camels (dromedaries, not bactrians, like mine) and they have one particular female that has always been right at the bottom of the pecking order, and is low in weight and very boney. The person that sent the message did say that although she's not as visibly healthy as the others (in terms of body condition), she is full of energy (as my little girl seems to be) and they have no reason to think that she's ill at all. I'm very inexperienced when it comes to camels, and like everyone on this site, I want to ensure I'm giving the animals under my charge the best care possible, but I'm starting to think that, although my concerns clearly have some foundation, I may be being overly concerned due to that lack of experience. I'm going to try to stop comparing my female's condition to that of the male (who is really in great shape and, for his age, is huge), but regard her independently.

Thank you to everyone that has supported me over this last few very worrying days. I hope that in the future I'll be able to help others in the way you have me.

[3droms]

I'm glad things are going well.

I also worried about one of my camels weight because she was more "bony" looking than the others. I came across some camel owners who were doing camel races at a local show. They showed me one of their "bony" looking camels and reassured me that it was ok. I would still like her to be a bit rounder but I am not so worried.