Karen Baum, DVM, is one of our country's leading experts in the field of camelid health. She began her career as a veterinarian at the tender age of 5, making her way through snow, often head high to care for the family livestock, in temperatures that often dipped down to minus twenty degrees.
Through rain, sleet, and snow, Little Doc is always on-call. A popular consultant with veterinarians, both nationally and internationally, Dr Baum has given over 100 seminars, written over 70 articles, and has lectured as far away as Australia. While a member of the faculty at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Virginia Tech, Little Doc founded the large Animal Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and established the Lama Advisory Committee.
Little Doc is currently president and owner of Little Doc's Veterinary Care, a private large animal practice that specializes in llama and alpaca health care. In her spare time, Dr Baum serves as Vice President of the Alpaca Research Foundation and Treasurer of the International Llama Registry. When not on the farm, or making calls, you can often find Little Doc and her llamas working with special needs children, visiting nursing homes, or letting special children compete in shows with one of her llamas. Imagine the joy of seeing a wheelchair-bound child compete at a show with one of your llamas, and you'll understand where Lama Mama gets her motivation.
Dr. Mark Hall, DVM
Dr. Mark Hall, DVM has worked with Camelids for several years, predominantly with a family farm raising Alpacas. However, in the past two years he has gotten involved with Llamas and is enjoying the experience as well s those involved.
One experience that Doctor Hall relates is his test in "unprepared field delivery" of an Alpaca for one of his Continuing Education classes.
Dr. Hall and his wife Tracey reside in Monmouth, Illinois with their two lovely daughters and enjoys spending time with his horses.
Diana Blair,"Fiber Matters!"
She offers classes at the mill in dyeing of fiber/yarn, hand spinning, and knitting/crocheting techniques. Diana has many years in the area of marketing and teaches seminars on value-added marketing, agritourism and the best ways to achieve the highest yield from your processed fiber. She also shears, sorts, and classifies raw alpaca/llama fiber. When a new customer comes to the mill needing help, she offers to show them the difference between a field skirt, a spinner's skirt and a mill skirt on their raw llama fiber, all the while, sorting the fiber into batches for processing into rovings/batts or many different types and weights of yarn. This helps get the new customer off to a confident start.
Diana has been the llama/alpaca superintendent for the Northwestern Montana Fair for the last five years and the originator of the Montana Fiber Roundup held in Kalispell. Many rescued llamas have been placed in new homes, especially with the L.L.A.M.A.4-H group of which Diana is a leader along with her two grown daughters. (Too Macho Howey, the mini llama in the photo, was a rescue and now is the pride and joy of a 4-H member.)
Dr. Ruthanne McCaslin, DVM
Dr. Ruthanne brings a unique perspective. She has
been a veterinarian for nearly four decades and an
alpaca breeder for 14 years. She is also an amateur
fiber artist, an alpaca show enthusiast, and alpaca
educator (which means she educates people about
alpacas. She doesn’t educate the alpacas. They educate
her.) Last, but definitely not least, she is the wife of
Dr. Ed and the mother of three grown children –
no grandchildren yet, but she does have a granddog,
four grandkittens, and two grandlizards.
She has a passion for learning and a
passion for teaching. She attend as many educational
conferences as she can and try to keep herself up
to the minute on all things alpaca. She enjoyspassing
along what she learns to anyone who is interested.
She is a great
believer that “a spoonful of sugar makes the
medicine go down” both literally and figuratively.
She has been known to mix Corid with Koolaid
(the alpacas still don’t like it, but they don’t hate
it quite so much). She also mix learning with a little
levity (and a lot of alliteration).
To view Articles of Incorporation or IMLF Bylaws, please click on the appropriate link.
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UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE VETERINARY TEACHING HOSPITAL
Care and information available 24/7
Knoxville, TN
Camelid/Large Animal Contact Phone Number: (865)-974-8387
Direct Number to Camelid/Large Animal Desk: (865)-974-5707
24 Hr. Emergency Information
Ohio State Veterinary Hospital
(Emergencies Only!)
614-292-6661