We had an 11 month old alpaca cria who was suffering from heat stress. We started working with her right away and got her core temperature down. She was recovering well, eating and drinking, even playing with her food bowl. However, she had not gotten up yet after a couple of days and was not cushing on her own. She did not seem to have the strength to push herself up to a cush position; however, she would stayed cushed for about 30 minutes at a time if I helped her into a cushed position. After the second day I could tell she was helping more getting into the cush position. The vet told us to give her a shot of selenium and banamine to aid her muscles to help her get up. She was dead within an hour. I am convinced the selenium killed her and the banamine covered up her initial reaction to it so we did not realize she was having a reaction til it was too late. Our vet is a camelid vet, so I know he knows about camelids. So I am wondering if this was a fluke for this particular animal or if selenium is never given to camelids? I have read through all the medical entries on the forum and have only seen a little info about selenium in food and that it can be toxic. Although it won't help with this cria, we need to know for future animals. Can anyone help us with this?
