Ann Marie Santesson Gerber

September 16-17 a group of 17 enthusiastic and curious delegates from Sweden, Norway and Finland gathered at Österlen Alpaca in the south east of Sweden where Julie Taylor-Browne, Marty McGee´s well-known Cameldynamics trainer, was leading the first clinic ever in these Nordic countries. With skill and spirit Julie was guiding people and alpacas in a short time to results nobody had ever thought were possible. Not only were the delegates introduced to the magic world of Camelidynamics but Julie´s general knowledge about alpacas was a great source of information and there were lots of questions that got their answers. Everybody was so happy to have learnt the basics of an extremely kind and respectful way of making their alpacas trust them which will make life so much easier and fun for both people and alpacas. No more wrestling in Scandinavia! Next year this clinic will be repeated together with Julie and Marty McGee herself will lead an advanced clinic in Sweden on her European tour.


The first alpaca vet workshop in Scandinavia

Veterinary Gina Bromage lead an extremely successful workshop for vets, together with the vets Heikki Sirkkola (Finland), Set Bornstein (Sweden) and Andrea Holmström (Sweden) on September 18-19 at Österlen Alpacka in Sweden. The alpaca industry is fairly new in the Nordic countries and the information need, not least for vets, is enormous as alpaca is not a subject at the veterinary colleges in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark. During two intense days 10 delegates had come to this workshop which was the first meeting ever for camelid vets up north and they got hands-on as well as theory on many very useful and important subjects. Gina was brilliant in the way she was sharing her vast alpaca experience with the rest of the group. Heikkis speciality is pregnancy diagnosis and he was in a very pedagogic way showing different ultra sound methods. Set was giving an interesting speach about parasites on camelids and Andrea was talking about a extremely important issue: diseases to be aware of when importing alpacas. All the delegates went home feeling much more secure in how to handle medical problems in alpacas and – not least – having got a new network of vets.

Both the TTEAM clinic and the workshop were organized by alpaca NORDICA, a new network of alpaca enthisiasts in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark (www.alpacanordica.alpacka.se).