Seminars

Two highly respected alpaca veterinarians will be giving seminars during the day on Saturday.

Jane Vaughan from Australia, an expert on nutrition, embryo transfer and reproduction, will deliver a definitive talk on Practical Nutrition for Alpacas.
*** Update *** Unfortunately Jane Vaughan is now unable to be with us at this time. Nick Weber has kindly offered to present the Practical Nutrition seminar based on her course notes.

Claire Whitehead, lecturer at the Royal Veterinary College in the UK, will present Reproductive Problems in Camelids.

Reserve your place at these seminars on this booking form (new window, PDF, 34KB).

Jane Vaughan

jane vaughan
Jane Vaughan graduated with a Bachelor of Veterinary Science with Honours from the University of Melbourne in 1988. She worked in mixed veterinary practice throughout Australia and in the United Kingdom for seven years, including providing veterinary services to a herd of 500 alpacas for three of those years. In 1996, Jane accompanied more than 600 alpacas from Peru to the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean, where they were held in quarantine for 12 months, prior to entering Australia. Jane’s day-to-day duties on Cocos Islands involved routine veterinary care of the alpacas (assisting with delivery of crias, and treating sick and injured animals), collection of tissue samples as part of the quarantine protocol, setting up a reproductive programme in the herd and ensuring the animals were fed appropriately throughout the quarantine period.

In 1997-98, Jane undertook a Residency in Food Animal Medicine at Murdoch University in Western Australia. She studied ruminant nutrition and passed examinations during this time to become a Member of the Australian College of Veterinary Science in Ruminant Nutrition.

Between 1999 and 2001, Jane completed a Doctor of Philosophy entitled Control of ovarian function in alpacas at Central Queensland University, Rockhampton. The study was funded by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) and investigated the reproductive physiology of alpacas and ways in which ovarian function may be controlled with the use of various exogenous reproductive hormones.

Jane formed a research group with Professor David Galloway and Dr David Hopkins in 2002-2003, which was funded by RIRDC, to develop commercial artificial insemination techniques in alpacas. The preliminary findings have been published and further funding was transferred to the University of Sydney in 2004.

Over the last five years, Jane and Dr David Hopkins, of the Bellarine Veterinary Practice, developed and commercialised embryo transfer in alpacas. Jane currently provides alpaca embryo transfer services in most states of Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. She has performed more than 1000 flushes and now has more than 1000 crias either gestating or on the ground in Australia alone.

Jane has presented numerous lectures on reproductive physiology of male and female alpacas, embryo transfer and artificial insemination in South American camelids, treatment of infertile alpacas, and alpaca digestive physiology and nutrition at various veterinary and camelid breeder conferences in Australia, New Zealand, Peru, USA, United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland. She has also co-authored a number of papers in refereed journals.

In addition to providing commercial embryo transfer services, Jane lectures on reproductive physiology and nutrition to veterinary students at the University of Melbourne and Charles Sturt University, New South Wales. She also provides nutritional advice and Johne’s Disease Market Assurance Programs to alpaca breeders in Australia. Jane has been Honorary Secretary of the Australian Alpaca Veterinarians (a special interest group of the Australian Veterinary Association) for the last eight years, and recently retired as the editor of their newsletter after 6 years of service. Jane is also involved with Government-funded research projects investigating alpaca nutrition and DNA studies in Suri alpacas.

Claire Whitehead

claire whitehead BVM&S MS DACVIM MRCVS
Claire Whitehead graduated from the Edinburgh Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies in 1999. Thereafter she worked in mixed and small animal practice while developing an interest in camelid work.

In 2002 Claire moved to the US to work with David Anderson at The Ohio State University, and completed a Residency in Large Animal Internal Medicine in July 2005. Llamas and alpacas formed approximately 95% of her caseload. Claire stayed at Ohio State for another year as a clinical instructor in Camelid Medicine and Reproduction.

In February 2007, she took up a position at the Royal Veterinary College near Hatfield where she is establishing a Camelid Medicine and Reproduction referral service. This is the first specialist referral service catering specifically to the camelid community in the UK. Claire's main research interests include vitamin D metabolism, neonatology, immunology, and neurological diseases.