BACKGROUND Prophylactic Vitamin D supplementation is a common practice in Alpaca breeding in many regions around the world. An overdosage can lead to dystrophic mineralization of soft tissues. In this paper we illustrate a suspected case of hypervitaminosis D in an 8-year-old female Alpaca. CASE PRESENTATION In June 2015, the carcass of an 8-year-old female Alpaca (Vicugna pacos) was submitte...

Increasing the knowledge of the semen characteristics in the alpaca will contribute to understanding one of the many factors that affect the poor fertility rate in this species. Ten adult male alpacas, 2.6-10 years of age, average weight 64.7 +/- 4.7 kg were used. The animals were distributed randomly into two groups of five each and submitted alternatively to two semen collections, using an ar...

OBJECTIVE To construct an immune alpaca phage display library, in order to obtain a single domain anti-BAFF (B cell-activating factor) antibody. METHODS Using phage display technology, we constructed an immune alpaca phage display library, selected anti-BAFF single domain antibodies (sdAbs), cloned three anti-BAFF single-domain antibody genes into expression vector pSJF2, and expressed them e...

Cerebellar abiotrophy, a premature degeneration of cerebellar neurons, has been described in most domestic animals. Affected animals typically present with progressive neurologic signs after a variable period of postnatal normalcy. This report describes the clinical, histopathologic, and immunohistochemical (IHC) findings of cerebellar abiotrophy in an alpaca. The alpaca developed intention tre...

Recently there has been a lot of talk in alpaca circles about phosphorus. Personally, I have been approached by many alpaca owners questioning whether it is something new and whether phosphorus supplementation is going to fix or solve this or that. Basically people have been trying to understand what it is all about! Hence it is timely to look at the topic of phosphorus and alpacas but is it th...

The molecular mechanisms underlying the formation of coat colors in animals are poorly understood. Recent studies have demonstrated that microRNA play important roles in the control of melanogenesis and coat color in mammals. In a previous study, we characterized the miRNA expression profiles in alpaca skin with brown and white coat color and identified a novel miRNA (named lpa-miR-nov-66) that...

CASE DESCRIPTION A 1-month-old female alpaca was examined because of progressive clinical signs consistent with an intracranial lesion. CLINICAL FINDINGS Clinical signs included signs of depression, lethargy, tetraparesis, and neck weakness. Two large isointense intracranial masses could be seen on T1-weighted magnetic resonance images. On T2-weighted images, the masses contained concentric r...

La región de Puno cuenta con diversos recursos potenciales mineros, agrícolas y pecuarios; donde la extracción los minerales se realiza manera poco sostenible, afectando al medio ambiente, toda vez que producción papa, quinua pecuaria carne alpaca ovino ser parte las actividades productivas potenciales, en muchos casos es afectado por pasivos ambientales actividad minera. El objetivo del estudi...

El objetivo del estudio fue evaluar el efecto de la adición colesterol sobre motilidad e integridad acrosoma espermatozoide criopreservado alpaca. Se utilizaron 15 eyaculados obtenidos alpaca y colectados por vagina artificial. La inicial mayor al 60 %. Las variables evaluadas fueron membrana posdescongelado. viscosidad semen fresco tratada con una solución colagenasa 0,1 % posteriormente muest...