Camelid care to feature in latest interactive webinar for new vets 

Camelid health will be the topic when the next in a series of interactive webinars takes place tomorrow evening (26 October).

The session, “Day one camelid care”, is at 7:30pm and hosted by Ami Sawran, a member of the VetPartners clinical and farm executive boards, and clinical director of the Chelmsford branch of Westpoint Farm Vets.

The session is the latest in the series of live and interactive webinars under the Farm Animal Veterinary Society (FAVS) Carpool Cases series for new graduates and students. It has been created by FAVS in partnership with VetPartners to give them front-line experience of farm vets.

Camelid nuances

Dr Sawran – who has completed a production animal health and welfare internship, a PhD in cattle lameness and a certificate in advanced camelid practice – has taken part in a professional development trip to Peru as part of the Nunoa Project, working with mountain farmers to support alpaca herds.

Explaining the focus of the webinar, she said: “With the number of alpacas and llamas in the UK rising, the importance of understanding the nuances of camelid characteristics is going to become ever more important for farm vets.

“Given the crossover of illnesses and diseases between farm livestock and camelids, farm vets are best placed to attend to them. So, it’s really important to help show them that livestock experience and knowledge are very transferrable for these species.”

Stoic animals

Dr Sawran added: “Being stoic animals, camelids can be hard to diagnose, so I’ll be sharing the key factors vets need to know about preventing and treating ill health.

“I also really want to share my thoughts on why I feel working with alpacas and llamas has led me to become a more inquisitive vet, and how learning new things about new species has helped me on my professional journey.”

Full details are at the specific Eventbrite page or via www.favs.org.uk