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Ticks

I am a newbie in the alpaca business and brought our first three alpacas to the farm 2 1/2 weeks ago. The ticks in our area are overwheliming and we are removing ticks from the alpacas on a daily basis. I have not been able to find much information regarding the prevention of ticks other than adding guinea fowl to the environment. We visited quite a few alpaca farms prior to making our first animal purchase and all farms reported that they had no issues with ticks on their alpacas (other than occassionally around the ears after shearing). Does anyone have any protocol they use for the prevention of tick infestation? We are concerned about the health risk that all of the tick bites present for our alpacas.

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Permalink Reply by Janet Tapply on July 3, 2009 at 9:25pm: Hi Deb,
I would recommend spraying the alpacas - we do the ears when we start seeing a tick issue (or hearing of one) we only spray ears. We use Adams flea and tick spray and it seems to do the job. (we do it monthly) Ticks in the ears are a big issue and can kill your alpacas. Our vet was having issues at another local farm where the ticks killed a couple of their animals last year.

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Permalink Reply by Deb Wellinghoff on July 4, 2009 at 12:03pm: Janet,
Thank you for the reply and the advice, I will start looking to see where I can purchase the Adams spray. We have also been told that we can spray the premises with Tempo which is supposed to be animal safe. These ticks really have me worried and they are so hard to spot on the alpacas. May I ask why you only spray the alpacas ears? We are finding ticks in lots of other places (on the face around the eyes, on the bib and sometimes inside the back legs) but have not found any in their ears. Of course, it is not easy to see into those dark ears! Thanks again . . . . . Deb; ▶ Reply to This