Biosecurity
No matter what the purpose of your alpacas or how many you have, it’s necessary that you practice best on-farm biosecurity and animal health and welfare to safeguard your herd, and the entire alpaca industry from biosecurity threats and diseases.
Through implementing on-farm biosecurity practices in your alpaca herd, you’ll protect the health of your livestock, limit production losses and help maintain market access for Australia’s alpaca producers.
Recommended biosecurity for alpaca owners
The recommended on-farm biosecurity practices for alpaca owners can be found in the National Biosecurity Reference Manual: Grazing Livestock Production.
This manual provides a set of voluntary, cost-effective guidelines to help reduce the risk of disease entering a property, spreading through the livestock population, and/or being passed to surrounding livestock operations. It outlines recommended measures under five management areas: Livestock; People, equipment and vehicles; Feed and water; Pests and weeds; Management.
Farm biosecurity plan
If you’re just starting out in the industry or you’ve been around for a while but haven’t paid much attention to the concept of biosecurity, you should download an on-farm biosecurity template and start taking steps to protect your herd and property.
A farm biosecurity plan contains all the measures required to help mitigate the risk of disease entry and spread. The farm biosecurity plan should complement the practices outlined in the National Biosecurity Reference Manual: Grazing Livestock Production.
Biosecurity plans do not need to be lodged with any particular authority, just keep it safe, easily accessible and ensure you regularly re-visit to ensure the practices are relevant to your production and make sure that any staff you have on the property are aware of your plan’s details.
Download a template here and get started with protecting or enhancing your property.
You can also download a Farm Biosecurity Action Planner which will walk you through assessing risks for your property and building in quick and simple measures to help protect your property. Hard copies of this action planner are available through Animal Health Australia at publications@animalhealthaustralia.com.au.
Quality Assurance programs
As an alpaca owner, participating in industry quality assurance programs are one of the ways to keep diseases, pests and weeds off your property. Q-Alpaca and AlpacaMAP are programs that encourage monitoring and management of known diseases, diagnosis and gives you the best opportunity to reduce an emergency animal disease risk (such as foot-and-mouth disease) that could affect your herd if an outbreak were to occur.
National South American Camelid Declaration and Waybill
The National South American Camelid Declaration and Waybill has recently been updated for use by Alpaca producers to provide information about the health status of their herds. Buyers should ask for a copy and use the information provided to determine the health risks associated with the animals offered for sale.
Transporting alpacas
It is recommended that you check state transport regulations when moving livestock across borders and ensure that the animals welfare is being looked after.
Get in touch with the relevant state or territory agriculture department and for further information on land transport of alpacas, read the Land Transport Standards and Guidelines.