Care questions

We got a 7 month old female tamandua about a month ago. She is absolutely amazing! She is doing great, but I think I am considering adding meat to her diet since you say it is good for them. I had heard they eat meat, but was worried as you were about bacteria. But, I also saw on your description that they can get something called anteater pox. I also got mine from South America, and am worried that she might have this. She has several pustules on one of her feet, and it does not looks like ringworm. What can you tell me about it? I have not heard of this problem. Is there anything I should do for it? How can I be sure this is what she has? Thanks so much.

It's like chicken pox and clears up on it's own. The zoo cases didn't do anything for them. I put neem oil on them to help heal them. Pua had them on her face but other places too.


from the zoo health study
Anteater pox

Quote :

Symptoms: Lesions resembling chronic dermatitis were found in multiple sites on feet and neck.

Treatment Strategy: No treatment listed. Poxvirus is a localized disease that regresses spontaneously.

Pox, such as chicken pox, are caused by a herpes virus so there's not much you can do for it but let it run it's course. Neem though has been shown to be anti-viral so I tried putting some of that on. I have no way of knowing how much it helped. I'd be cautious of anything over the counter on them as she could ingest it. Neem is a safe natural oil. They took just shy of a month to heal up. They had healed over at about 3 week but totally gone by a month from the first ones showing up.

Sorry to the other part of the question you could have it tested. Have the vet look for a pox virus it's closely related to cowpox and the kind elephants can get. That should be enough to let them know what to test for.

Keep an eye on her breathing as sometimes pox can go to the lungs and cause pneumonia but I've not heard of that yet in anteaters. If you notice any bleeding get some extra K into her.

Pua has done really great on the beef mix diet where it used to be a struggle to keep weight on her. What are you feeding now?

As long as it will heal up on its own, I guess that I dont need to test for it. I just wanted to make sure that my other animals would not get it, especially since we have capuchins and my husband is worried about them getting monkey pox. I have read an article where anteaters (they were giant ones though) had contracted a pox-virus from some exotic felines at a zoo that got it from eating infected rats. All of the animals at that zoo that got it died. But it did not start in the anteaters and seemed to be a much different thing. She just has a few spots on her front foot and one on the hind. But I am starting to think that they may be fire ant bites instead.
Currently I am feeding her a combination of: Vitamin D milk (though I am slowly switching her to KMR), honey, a childrens vitamin tablet, some of the soluble fiber powder, and cat food, both canned and dry. I am slowly decreasing the amount of milk to thicken the mixture, as she was very insistant on it being really watery when I got her. We tried the red kidney beans for fiber as you suggested and it just made the mixture really pasty. I have contacted the local supplier of Mazuri about getting some insectivore and they have yet to get back to me. I also add 2 Vitamin K tablets from GNC to her food once a day. I am not sure if that is enough but she seems to be doing fine on it. My vet wasnt sure exactly how much was necessary for maintenance, as the only thing in the books is for things like rat poison.
The other question that I am struggling with is that she seems to have been in heat for about 2 weeks now. She is licking her genital area ALOT (like, she spends probably 50-60 % of her day doing that), and I thought the bleeding had resolved but apparently not. She does not have blood in her urine or feces, so I dont think it is a hemmoragic thing. How long do the females usually menstruate for?

Anteater pox and monkey pox aren't the same things. The monkey pox virus is from Africa. As to weather a monkey could get anteater pox I can't say for sure but it's probably unlikely since the anteater pox is supposed to not be zoonotic to humans,which are primates, making it less likely that other primates would be susceptible. Still it's good to take precautions just in case.

As the giant anteater pox case shows you don't know how a virus will act in a new host but that didn't sound like the same virus as they got it in captivity. Link for anyone else's reference who may read this www.jstor.org/stable/30107025 Giant anteaters also can get flu but I've not heard of Tamanduas getting flu yet. Both can get anteater pox but I don't know about other kinds.

If she's sexually mature then she's at least a year old. Though they will still grow some up to about a year and a half. Pua was the same supposed to be younger but was sexually mature already though did grow some. So best guess was that she was a year to year and a half. Pua used to cycle regularly spotting for 3 days to a week and every 30 days. Since just before her illness(strep) she has had off cycles with some holistic treatments we've gotten her closer to normal. Some sources list up to a 50 day cycle but Pua has always been monthly and most other keepers said theirs spot monthly when we discussed it.

Pua enjoys licking herself too but this is not when she is spotting but almost always after or sometimes before. The amount of spotting varies from almost nothing to needing to wipe up a bit but never really heavy. Maybe I should get some photos sometime. It's usually obvious that it's a "period" blood and not bleeding out as it's a mix of clear mucus and blood.

I had figured out how much vit K they get in the half cat half leafeater diet that many zoos give and made sure my diet had at least that much K. I don't supplement but I have a shot fo K on hand in case of emergencies. It seems most major illnesses they get wind up involving bleeding. I would say it is like they are on rat boison all the time. Rat poison prevents the body from recycling(the re-uptake of) vitamin K. I believe the issue is that they do not recycle K like most species and get enough of it in the wild diet that they don't have to, where as most animal diets do not include much K so they have to recycle it. Illness can interfear with their intake and use of vitamins which can then lead to bleeding problems due to the lack of K. But that's just theory based on my observations.

I do not supplement K and instead make sure it is in the diet that I feed in sufficient amounts in natural form. I use Thyme or Spinich but use thyme mostly now. As outlined in the beef part of the diet section of the caresheet http://hubpages.com/hub/Anteater-Care-Sheet

I worked hard on the diet as I added up all the nutritional values and compared them to the stomach contents nutritional values of the wild tamanduas. Only thing not covered was K content in that study so I just made sure it had more that what the zoo anteaters get in the average diet.

From the analysis of stomach contents of wild tams.
51% protein
31% fiber
11% fat
14% ash (minerals)
0.11% Ca
0.41% Phosphorus
2,748PPM Fe(iron)

4.58 kcal/g GE(gross energy or carbs)
0.10% magnesium
0.52% potasium
0.29% sodium
2.52 PPM retinol(vit A)
44.3 PPM a-tocopherol(vit E)
190PPM zinc
82PPM manganese
28PPM copper
4PPM selenium

combination of Masuri foods each feeding - insectivore, big cat, and primate(equal parts for the compiled analysis(someone was feeding this mix so had added up the nutritional values for them) It is higher in some minerals but you can up those in ours with the right mineral supplements if needed, with DE and rotating in bee pollen it helps that. The most important things are off but not as much as some diets.

33% Protein
10.5% fiber
7% ash (almost half the natural diet above)
14% fat
3.12 kcal/g GE

1.33% CA(about 10X the natural diet)
1% phosphorus (aqlso above natural diet but worse is the ratio being off)
0.14% Magnesium
0.76% Potasium
0.39% sodium
508 PPM Retinol(vit A)
290 PPM a-tocopherol(vit E)
360PPM Fe(iron)
150PPM zinc
80PPM managanese
26PPM copper
0.45PPM selenium

My diet(said ours as I worked on some of the final touches with someone)
In my mix though some times I vary like adding thyme or using mushrooms sometimes

3 cups 75% lean beef, 3 feeder insects, 1/2 cup flax seeds ground to a meal, 1/2 cup wheat bran, 1/3 cup spinach, 1 cup beef heart, 3tbls unsulphered black strap molasses, 2tbls nutritional brewer's yeast(am now using 1 cup wheat bran and a 1/4 cup flax for solid dog like poops and ups the fiber)

41.42% protein
7% fiber
36.54% fat
4.98% ash
0.09% CA
0.44% Phos
72.373 PPM Iron
(from here down data is lacking on the silk worms, but the trace vit and minerals in them wouldn't effect it much)
0.13% magnesium
0.78% potasium
0.13% sodium
2.57 PPM retinol(vit A)
8.13 PPM a-tocopherol(vit E) I mix some Wheat germ oil with her blue cheese to extra E since the diet is low and E also help inhibit retinol abosrption but it's not calculated here.
59.90 PPM zinc
11.07 PPP Manganese
6.98 PPM copper
0.27 PPM selenium

82PPM manganese
28PPM copper
4PPM selenium

Variations on my diet
710.9002 2 tbls thyme added 0.1ca 0.44phos
679.3202 thyme replacing yeast .11CA .39phos

I've actually been using 1 cup bran and 1/3 cup flax as that gives her the best poops but need to get the full analysis on that. Mixing it up a little is actually good long as you don't get to far aff as their wild diet is not static like a kibble diet is.

You will find Cat food to be one of the biggest problems as it is so high in retinol(vit A) and they need so little. Older zoo tamanduas are coming down with spinal lesions, the one girl someone had feeding a kibbled diet was crippled from this. It's thought to be from to much A and Calcium. One thing to remember though is vitamin A from plants isn't retinol but components the body could turn into retinol but it will only do that if needed. I'll see if I can work out the K in the diet. As i said it's not listed due to there being no wild data on it.

Dang I accidentally cleared the form. I don't want to figure it again but the diet is 9.2mcg per 100 grams of food based on the exact recipe I posted(assuming memory didn't fail me).

The insectivore is 8.1ppm which I think is the same as MCG per 100 grams in this case
the half feline half insectivore mazuri mix is 3.2ppm

The problem is both those kibbles are very high in vitamin A. The cat leafeater is 20.2ppm. The insectivore is just 4.62ppm but that's double wild diet still.

I know a lot of people feed these diets but this is why I am not into using kibbles of any sort. Though it could probably work out if you used some sort of beef kibble mix as it would add phos and lowing the A by doing so. One would have to work out the nutrition they would be getting though.

Of course they can be picky. Pua is but is better than she used to be but Stewie would eat anything, really he ate a lipstick once, I didn't even remember I had it till he found it and I discovered him eating it.

OK. So I have big cats, and we feed them a prepared diet by Natural Balance that is 10% fat with USDA quality beef that also has vitamins and fiber added into it. I am not sure exactly what percentages is in it I would have to look at the label. But if it has close to what you are describing maybe I will try adding some of that into her diet instead of cat food or plain meat and then I wouldnt have to add all the other stuff in it. I am all about simple... I have too many animals to be individually preparing diets like that. lol. Thanks so much. I didnt mean to have you do all that math and stuff. But it is good to know because everyone has their own opinion about what to feed, and as long as they get the nutrients I dont think it matters. And just for your infomation, I was totally against prepared diets and kibble also until we got our big cats started on this Natural Balance. Their coats and stools have improved 100% since switching them off chunk meat (horse and beef) with added vitamins. I think it also has a lot to do with the fact that the meat in the Natural Balance is USDA quality and tested for bacteria and prepared in an amazingly clean facility. So I guess there is something to be said after all about prepared diets, as long as they are well throught out and researched. So I will look into it, and get some insectivore and leaf eater since that sounds the simplest. Thanks so much!

Yes everyone has their own feeding preferences. Even with dogs some people get into heated debates on what to feed. I can understand needing something convenient when you have a lot of animals. The natural balance logs of zoo food are much better since it's not kibble, long as the nutrients work out.

I'll try get to your email soon. We had a little emergency with one of our domestic animals here but she's okay now.

Up to 14 days of spotting could be okay but any longer and I'd be concerned. There was the study done though on a very small pool of tamanduas. But the one female showed blood 7-12 days. There females cycles were 40-42 days. Like I said Pua's was always 30 with more spotting some cycles than others and seems most others are in the about a month range in private tamanduas. Maybe there is some variance by subspecies. Anyway you can see the abstract of the study without paying http://www.jstor.org/pss/20095371t

Ideally keep track of her spotting days and as long as she falls into a regular cycle it should be okay for her.