Focus Areas for the Future

During the next 5 to 10 years, we envision the development of research "focus areas" in our llama program. The "herd-in-residence" will be used for the vast majority of these research efforts. This will allow maximal efficiency and productivity of our research program.

Nutrition research is needed to help guide decisions regarding feeding and trace mineral supplementation. Nutrition and the metabolic stress associated with poor nutrition may be the common denominator to much of the disease problems that we see in many herds. We must increase our knowledge and understanding of glucose, protein, and trace mineral metabolism in llamas in order to establish reliable recommendations for feeding these animals. Also, we need to establish a feed analysis protocol to document geographic changes in nutritional value of pastures and hay.

Development of parasite control strategies are lacking. Many recommendations for use of anthelmintic are based on "educated guesses". We have documented problems with some of these recommendations (e.g. Ivermectin oral and pour-on formulations; other oral medications) in some herds, but not in others. We must investigate the distribution of these anthelminthics in llamas to be able to make specific recommendations for their use.

Heat stress continues to be a devastating problem for llama owners. We are developing a heat stress model that may be used to investigate the development and effects of heat stress in a controlled setting. This would allow us to investigate the usefulness of intervention techniques for heat stress prevention.

Infertility is a poorly understood problem in male and female llamas. We are beginning to investigate the effects of nutrition and environment on fertility. Of particular interest is infertility in males because this has received little attention in the past.