I have received the following information from Dave and Sandra Wallace of Alpacas at Crossroads Ranch. Which I am posting here as I feel it is important to spread the word about what appears to be happening.......

This past week, members of SoCalpaca have been sharing their experience of contagious diarrhea that has jumped quarantine pens to affect home herds (beginning about 3/21 last week), after members having gone to SWRAZ (3/6-9), and/or IAO (3/13-16) the following week.

We’re engaged in taking a survey to determine the scope of the problem and possible causes. One ranch has reported that sample test sent to U.C. Davis came back positive for Corona Virus. We’re checking with all our vets on this.

We began by sharing our on site situations to define the problem and have now moved on to brainstorming for solutions before determining actions that our industry needs to take.

As part of our solutions discussion, we’ve agreed to open sharing our emails on a broader scale. We began with speaking among ourselves directly, as many do not read Alpaca Site for varying reasons and Alpaca Watch was contacted first, but a form email came back in return with no follow up, so that was not timely and didn’t work.

I will send our composite emails to those who are interested, if you ask. Our goal is to determine the scope of the current problem and work together to improve the situation we find ourselves in.

Since I’ve been working with professionals in our State on Disaster Preparedness, as part of my participation in the Affiliate Congress as representative for SoCalpaca, this is a good time to share some key points I’ve learned recently.

As per Red Cross: Prepare
Plan
Stay Informed