Winter 2006

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Breeding Success Alpaca farmers help establish a first-in-the-nation Camelid Studies Program

—Faye S. Wolfe

Jennifer and Ian Lutz show off one of the youngest and cutest members of their alpaca herd to Robert Williamson ‘06, third from left, and Stephen Purdy ’06, DVM, director of the Camelid Studies Program. (photo by Ben Barnhart) RAISING FURRY SEUSS-LIKE CREATURES WAS not what Jennifer Lutz had in mind when she left for college, waving goodbye to the cattle, chickens, and pigs on her family’s Vermont farm. Well aware of how demanding farming is, Jennifer was set on a career in civil engineering. Then she took a senior study trip to Ecuador and fell in love with llamas. “First the joke was that we’d get a llama for the front yard. Then the joke became an alpaca in the front yard,” is how Jennifer and her husband, Ian, take turns telling the story. Then, the joke became a business. Ten years later, the Cas-Cad-Nac herd totals 219, with number 220 imminent. The animals are still quasi-exotic in the Green Mountain state—there are about 60,000 in the entire United States—although Latin American farmers raise them by the thousands for their luxurious fiber. The Lutzes run Cas-Cad-Nac as a breeding enterprise; the average worth of each animal is $20,000. In fact, the Lutzes have run their farm so successfully that they have been able to give $500,000 to UMass Amherst’s Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences for the establishment of an undergraduate Camelid Studies Program, the first in the nation. Designed to give students the chance to study alpacas, and to give alpaca owners and large-animal veterinarians experience in treating camelids’ health, as well as to provide medical services for alpacas and llamas, the Lutzes’ gift will also fund an associate professorship in veterinary education. And the Hadley Farm now houses its own herd of alpacas, donated by several alpaca breeders. With their big eyes and furry topknots, the alpacas are irresistibly cute to visitors. They charm their owners, too. “They’re spoiled,” says Ian, who feeds them second-cut hay and special grains; a beautiful barn provides cover on the snowiest days. They’re even given names, like Love Supreme (after the Coltrane jazz classic), and Serenity, a newborn gamboling in the field. Ian worked as a kindergarten aide before he and Jennifer began raising the gentle but aloof creatures. Not aggressive toward people, alpacas are “hard-wired not to show weakness,” Ian explains, “an essential trait when you’re puma-bait in the wild. Raising alpacas requires knowing the personality traits of the individuals in a herd,” says Ian, so that one can tell when something is amiss. The most serious health threat to this relatively hardy species is Parelaphostrongyus tenuis, the meningeal worm, which can cause paralysis and death. Alpacas are infected via the droppings of white-tailed deer. The current inoculation method is time-consuming monthly de-worming. Researchers in the Camelid Studies Program at UMass Amherst are working on the development of an accurate diagnostic test for the disease and a preventative vaccine. Among those involved in that research is Robert Williamson ’06. In an honors colloquium that focused on the meningeal worm, he discovered a peculiar fascination with parasites. “They’re kind of cool and creepy,” he says, smiling. In the lab, he has tested slugs for the worm. “I’m planning to examine the resistance that white-tailed deer have to acquiring additional meningeal worms after their initial infection,” says Williamson of his senior thesis project. He is also interested in the alpaca’s immune system and hopes to continue with camelid studies in graduate school. Besides a possible test and vaccine, the Lutzes foresee other benefits from the program. “I’d love to see the creation of a pool of talent that alpaca farmers could recruit from,” says Ian. The Lutzes employ three to five people and say that due to the demise of dairy farming it can be difficult to find skilled large-animal workers. Ian hopes that the program will also encourage UMass Amherst students to become large-animal vets: “There is a lack of large-animal vets in general, and within that small group, only a few who are knowledgeable about camelids.” It was through a veterinarian that the Lutzes came to give to the campus. “We just happened to live 15 minutes from the most highly regarded camelid vet in New England,” explains Ian. That vet is UMass Amherst professor Stephen Purdy, DVM, now director of the Camelid Studies Program. The Lutzes met Purdy in Colorado at an Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association conference in 1997. “He watched our backs with the early breeding stock,” Ian notes. “He did a lot of hand-holding at odd hours of the night.” The Lutzes have come a long way from that moment—they’ve got two blond, blue-eyed offspring of their own now, Sam and Max, ages seven and four respectively—but the relationship with Purdy and UMass Amherst is stronger than ever. On a picture-perfect spring day, Purdy is at Cas-Cad-Nac with a group of students, including Williamson, in tow. Dressed in khaki coveralls, they stand outside the maternity ward observing the alpacas, patchworks of cocoa, white, and black, who observe them back. In a minute, the crew will get to work, but for the moment everyone just seems to be savoring this time and place. To learn more visit: http://www.alpacaexcellence.com/

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