Antibiotics and gut flora

[3droms]

We have a camel which had a lot of mucus and a wheeze. We has some of the mucus cultured and they found Klebsiella pneumoniae which was resistant to many of the different types of antibiotics. We are treating him with Doxycycline twice a day and have found that he seems a little off colour. He is still eating but not as much as he normally would. Our vet advised us to feed him fresh faeces from our other (healthy) camel to re-seed his gut with beneficial bacteria after the course of antibiotics. Has anyone fed dung to their camel and if so how did they conceal it so the camel would eat it?

[camelidman]

Hi,
Sorry, I can't help you with any advice specifically about camels, however I've fed dung to llamas before.
The way I did it was to break up a couple of 'pebbles' then mix it with selenium additive, which is granulated and very strong smelling. I then mixed that with half a bucket full (3-4 kilos) of flaked horse feed and fed it directly.
I did that once a day for three days, following the advice of a vet friend of mine.

The symptoms she'd displayed before that time were very similar to the ones you report. Coughing in particular.
I was advised against antibiotics because of the resistance that you mentioned.

One thing I was told to do was to ensure that the donor llama I chose was from another field that had previously (lately) had no contact with the ill llama, and was in the best of visible health.

Hope that helps.

[camelsinfrance]

Hi
You have to be so very careful with antibiotics and camels...
Another thought, worked well for us, was to feed live yoghurt, thus helping to replace the bacteria in the gut.
Never thought of feeding dung, makes sense though
Good luck and keep us posted please