Project Overview
Commodities
- Animals: camelids
- Animal Products: fiber, fur, leather
- Miscellaneous: Compost, garden fertilizer, soil amendment
Practices
- Animal Production: animal protection and health, grazing management, manure management, parasite control, preventive practices, rangeland/pasture management
- Crop Production: fertilizers, food product quality/safety, organic fertilizers
- Education and Training: demonstration, farmer to farmer, networking, on-farm/ranch research, participatory research, technical assistance, workshop, youth education
- Farm Business Management: apprentice/intern training, feasibility study, whole farm planning
- Natural Resources/Environment: Environmental risks due to veterinary medicines
- Pest Management: compost extracts, integrated pest management, physical control, prevention, soil solarization
- Production Systems: organic agriculture
- Soil Management: composting, green manures, organic matter, soil analysis, soil chemistry, soil microbiology, soil quality/health, toxic status mitigation
- Sustainable Communities: sustainability measures
Proposal summary:
Most alpacas and llamas in eastern U.S. are treated with ivermectin or doramectin via subcutaneous
injection as part of a monthly regimen to prevent meningeal worm. Meningeal worm is hosted by
white-tailed deer, and snails and slugs are intermediate hosts. When alpacas or llamas ingest the
infective larvae, migration to the central nervous can cause muscle weakness, paralysis and death.
No commercial vaccine is available therefore prevention is based on management principles and
monthly deworming.
Veterinary studies have demonstrated that ivermectin can persist in manure and soil for months and
that ivermectin can be excreted in manure in concentrations highly toxic to organisms in the
ecosystem. Thus, the fate of these medications in alpaca manure is of deep concern since they may
pose environmental and health risks. No well-controlled studies have investigated the decay rate of
subcutaneously administered doramectin in alpaca raw manure or in alpaca manure compost.
Faraway Farm Alpacas is home to 20 alpacas. We treat the alpacas monthly with injectable
doramectin subcutaneously. Using the manure from our alpacas, we propose a well-controlled study
to: 1) determine maximum concentration of doramectin in alpaca manure after subcutaneous
injection; 2) determine doramectin concentrations in turned and unturned piles of composted alpaca
manure over 6 months.
Results from this project will be submitted for publication to alpaca trade magazines and to a
relevant peer-reviewed scientific journal. Besides presentations at alpaca shows and at our farm
workshops, results will be presented at Westchester County’s Agriculture and Farmland Protection
Board’s annual educational forum.
Project objectives from proposal:
Faraway Farm Alpacas is home to 20 alpacas. We treat the alpacas monthly with doramectin 1.0%
(10 mg/ml) injectable. Using the manure from our alpacas, we propose a well-controlled study to: 1)
determine maximum concentration of doramectin in alpaca manure after subcutaneous injection –
these concentrations are determined from raw manure samples taken daily for 7 days and at 14 days
after injection; 2) determine doramectin concentrations in turned and unturned piles of composted
alpaca manure over the course of 6 months – samples are taken periodically from the composting
piles; 3) compare temperature, and physical and chemical characteristics of composted alpaca
manure between turned and unturned piles. The study will provide data to determine decay rates of
doramectin in unturned and turned compost piles. It is expected that composting manure from
alpacas that have been dewormed with doramectin decreases the concentration of doramectin in the
resulting compost product and that the rate of decay will be greater for the optimally composted
pile.