Question: How to measure dose for Safeguard?
I need help figuring out the dose for tapeworm & strongyles. I have conflicting recommendations.
What I have is Safe-Guard 10% paste....(horse dewormer). it is 100 mg/g.
I want to draw it up into an oral syringe and dose it in ml's or cc's....notgrams!
Does 1 ml of this paste equal 1 gram equal 100mg?
What is the correct dosage for an alpaca? Is it 10mg/LB or 20 mg/LB? and how often to give it?
Please give me the dose for a 50 LB alpaca (& dosing regimen) and I can extrapolate for other weights.
Thanks!
Answer:
Deworming in alpacas (and llamas) can be quite confusing. There are numerous drugs and different dosages depending on which parasites we're interested in targeting.
To answer your questions:
1. What is the correct dosage for an alpaca? Is it 10mg/LB or 20 mg/LB?
The correct dosage for fenbendazole for treatment of gastrointestinal parasites (not including coccidia) is 20 mg/kg, or almost 10 mg/pound.
2. and how often to give it?
Usually we use it once a day for a total of 3 days. If periodic fecals examinations demonstrate good parasite control, it is possible to use it for one treatment once per month or every couple of months. When treating whip worms or tapeworms, we usually use it once a day for a total of 5 days.
3. What I have is Safe-Guard 10% paste....(horse dewormer). it is 100 mg/g. I want to draw it up into an oral syringe and dose it in ml's or cc's....not grams! Does 1 ml of this paste equal 1 gram equal 100mg?
Difficult to say. They have measured to drug on a weight basis instead of volume. And the horse deworming paste is usually calibrated by weight, not volume. You need to know what the volume of 1 g equals.
4. Please give me the dose for a 50 LB alpaca (& dosing regimen) and I can extrapolate for other weights.
A 50 lb alpca = 22.7 kg
Using the 20 mg/kg dose, (22.7 kg multiplied by 20 mg/kg) = 454 mg
If using the 10% horse past, then 454 mg divided by 100 mg/g = 4.5 g are required to treat a 50 lb alpaca.
Then you can divide the total amount of grams per tube by the notches on the plunger that pushes out the paste that that tells you how many grams there are per notch. Dose the required number of notches to give
you 4.5 g.
Not the easiest method I agree. Measuring a volume using a dosing syringe would likely be much easier. Assuming that 2 mL is sufficient to treat 22 lb, 5 mL should be adequate to treat a 50 lb alpaca.
5. Personally, the easiest method by far is to compare the dosages between treating alpacas and horses. Rather conveniently, the dose required to treat an alpaca (or llama) is approximately 4.5 times the horse dose. In this case using the horse paste, multiply the weight of your alpaca by 4.5 and that provides you the equivalent total dose required to treat a horse. In other words, a treating a 50 lb alpaca is the equivalent to treating a 225 lb horse (50 lb alpaca multiplied by 4.5). Look on the calibrated plunger to treat a 225 lb horse and that's how much you need to treat your 50 lb alpaca.
The notches are not that terribly accurate. Don't worry about giving extra, fenbendazole is quite safe, even for your crias and pregnant dams. In fact, the dose required to treat (not prevent) meningeal worm in camelids is 50mg/kg! Deworming the herd is only one portion of an integrated parasite control program. Appropriate stocking densities, pasture management including picking up pellets, screening new arrivals for parasites, periodic fecals (preferably using the sugar float and centrifugation technique) to confirm good parasite control and deworming other species on
the farm (ie: horse, or sheep) are important and often overlooked components of efficient parasite control and maximizing the herd's health. Hopefully this has answered your questions. Should you have further questions please
don't hesitate to send us an email.
Sincerely,
Dr. Ken Newman