11/09/2026
Under the current tb testing protocol for llamas and alpacas , the APHA only retest infected herds at 17 week intervals. This means that any undetected animals who may be incubating the disease will be likely to spread it amongst their herd mates during this time, once they become infectious , and a lot more llamas will be lost. Early detection is the only way to root out the disease . The owner of an infected herd , in this case Briery Hill Llamas , can request permission to undertake private blood testing , using Enferplex, at the owners expense . Very sensibly , this is exactly what they are going to do on Monday , 8 weeks after the previous blood test rather than just hoping for the best in 17 weeks time ! Costs for private testing include the lab fees , but also the vet`s time and equipment to take the individual blood samples from every llama , complete the paperwork , package the vials and send by refrigerated transport etc . Yet another outgoing when they have had no income from their llama trekking business for most of this year , and nor will they for many more months to come . It`s not just the financial cost , when you love your llamas as much as Lisa and Steve do . Testing is absolutely ghastly , pit of the stomach ghastly , easier to bury your head in the sand , pretend it`s just a nightmare , leave it in the hands of the APHA and hope it all just goes away . It takes real guts to be pro-active like this and instigate an extra private testing , so please show them your support in any way you can .
Hi All,
We are coming up to the next round of Enferplex testing on Monday.
This is private testing as we want to be 110% certain that Bovine tb is eradicated from our beautiful herd . This is an unprimed test before the next mandatory testing.
Please think of us on Monday 14th September and pray that the ones we lost all 13 are sending positive vibes to the herd.
Any small donation , will help us with this so please keep sharing the llama love.
Picture is Ziggy who is still in the herd and a Stardust son .
With heartfelt thanks,
Lisa & Family ###
https://gofund.me/9d9d56d64