Alpaca Journal

Because of the high value of individual animals, and the possibility that South American camelids evolved from a narrow gene pool, organisations in Australia and North America have established guidelines for the importation and prepurchase examination of alpacas. These guidelines list disqualifying congenital and heritable traits including malformed and absent tails. Little information is available on congenital and heritable conditions in South American camelids, but as the Australian alpaca industry develops it will be important that such defects are documented. Congenital caudal vertebral malformation in the alpaca has not been previously reported in the literature.  Read more