Despite the enthusiasm of the Australian Alpaca Association (AAA) to introduce mandatory electronic identification (eID) tagging, not everyone within the industry is sold on the idea.
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In NSW, smaller alpaca studs of 20 to 50 animals far outweigh the bigger studs with upwards of 500 animals and it is the owners of these smaller studs who are questioning what benefit they will get out of the eID tags and why they need to do it.
With that in mind, the AAA held an information session during the lunch break of the alpaca competition at Royal Canberra Show last Sunday.
Leading the demonstration were AAA board member Mick Williams, Mittagong, and Julie Wilkinson, Strathbogie.
Mr Williams said they held the session to explain the benefits of tagging, show how easy it was, and answer any questions.
"It's all about traceability because as an industry we say we do it, but it's often a grey area," Mr Williams said.
"Now if an animal leaves your farm it needs to have an NLIS tag in it. If it comes to a show, it needs an NLIS tag.
"We as a livestock breed have sailed under the radar for a long time and if we want that to continue, we need to show that we're progressing.
"We've all got two things in common. All of us love our alpacas and whenever anyone refers to alpacas, we always say it's an industry.
"So let's make sure we continue to build an industry by showing everyone that we're ready to progress.
"We have moved from emerging to developing. This is part of our next step in the evolution of alpacas."
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Mr Williams said his 1200-head enterprise, Coolawarra Alpacas, had been running an electronic tagging system for nearly 14 years.
"It's massive for us. People that have done work experience on the place have been part of some of the tagging and have seen how easy it was to do the recording," Mr Williams said.
"We use sheep tags. Alpaca tags will be like them, just the numbering will be different.
"I use the tags to record data when the cria is born, when we complete husbandry tasks and even to record when we move them from one paddock to another."
Alpacas moving off farm currently require a brass international alpaca registry tag, which Mr Williams says will become redundant with the use of the NLIS tag.
"The brass IAR tags will eventually become a secondary search," he said.
"Eventually as we go through alpacas, the eID number or herd number will be first, and then second will be brass. I imagine in 15 years time, we won't even know what a brass tag is."
Ms Wilkinson runs a 500-head alpaca operation, Baarrooka Estate Alpacas, and has been electronic tagging for years.
"I simply tag the cria the day it is born, record the date, the dam, sire and colour," she said.
"It is much easier to do it before the cria is up and walking. Then I have all that data available in a database for the lifetime of the alpaca.
"So instead of having that piece paper in the side-by-side which can easily get lost and you lose all the information, you've got everything in the database straight away."
Ms Wilkinson also demonstrated the scanning process with her own wand for the onlookers at the session.
"We held the demonstration to dispel any myths about what the process was like," she said.
"I hope everyone saw how easy it was. I can see eID tagging being of benefit to most studs."
Among those gathered for the information session, the main concern was when was the eID tagging going to be mandatory for alpacas.
"At this stage there is no date set for when it will be mandatory," Mr Williams said.
"But I can see it being in line with the sheep dates."
The Minister for Agriculture's office confirmed the dates are still to be set before eID tags become mandatory for alpacas.
