Today I delivered a collection of medical equipment to the Alpaca Vet School at Corvallis.
The money to purchase the equipment was raised by SOJAA (State of Jefferson Alpaca Association) and the equipment was sourced by alpaca breeder Zoltan Szabbo.

While there Chris Cebra gave us a tour of the new small animal hospital (cats and dogs) funded by the State of Oregon to the amount of $8 million. To my untrained eye it appeared to be every bit as impressive as a human hospital. The small animal hospital boasts an oncology ward, a cardio vascular ward and two state of the art operating theatres. I am certain most third world countries dream of having such a facility for humans let alone cats and dogs.

OSU are now half way to raising the $10 million they need to build an extension to the large animal facility (primarily equine but also camelid) this 26,000 sq ft expansion will include two riding arenas, an isolation unit, a radiology unit and an upgraded ICU.

As you will recall SOJAA have also offered to sponsor member nominated DVMs to attend either the two week lama surgery course later this year or the 4 day DVM Camelid Conference in March 2007 at OSU. The Camelid Conference next spring will probably have an owner/breeder session tagged on the end.

Chris Cebra a professor and head of department was really pleased to get the new equipment which will help with the care of premature alpaca crias that are referred to the vet school.



Adrian Stewart