Grubs and the Alpaca

This is so gross!  Cattle grubs are about the grossest parasite in existence.  They erupt as boil like structures on the backs of cattle. I have been mortified by seeing my step-father remove them from the bulls back before I added parasite control to his farming practices.  Well as life would have it alpacas are also pestered by this grub created by the warble fly.  Larvae of Hypoderma spp also have been reported in horses, sheep, goats, and humans. Yuck!!

A couple of years ago while helping another farm with shearing the owner declared a spot on one of the alpacas to be warbles. I had not heard other farms discuss them nor heard of them in alpacas before. The spot was about as round as the tip of your little finger and crusted. This was an abandoned exit site. They don’t look like that in cows. I have seen a random one of these spots on some of my alpacas at shearing before. I dad asked vets about them and they were called cysts of some kind. This year one of my old girls was covered in these spots. (Why her parasite treatments did not work I don’t know unless we missed her.) These spots are small round and the fleece will pull out of them with a waxy matted base. What this is dried pus (necrotic flesh) and plasma. Told you it was gross!

Well this year the proof appeared on a local farm, at shearing time in the boil stage, erupting, grub present form. So, no doubt about it, alpacas are host to warble fly larva, cattle grubs.

Below is a good website with all the particulars about these internal/external parasites. The most important thing to learn about them is that timing of treatment is critical. They have to be killed before they migrate to the spine and near the esophagus as killing them at that stage can kill the host. All this information is in this Merck Vet website.

There are seasons and recommend periods to treat. They vary depending on the area that you live in. Contact your local ag-extension agent to determine the best timing for your area to treat your alpacas for warble fly larva, Cattle Grubs.

(Excerpt from the website listed below)

Two species of Hypoderma , H bovis and H lineatum , are important pests of cattle. They are found between 25° and 60° latitude in the northern hemisphere in >50 countries of North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. In North America, H lineatum , the common cattle grub, is found in Canada, the USA, and northern Mexico; H bovis , the northern cattle grub, is generally found north of the 35th parallel. Occurrence in cattle and American bison is common. Larvae of Hypoderma spp also have been reported in horses, sheep, goats, and humans. Yuck!

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/71402.htm  

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