Llama and Camelid Record Keeping: What to Log and the Rules by Country

If you keep llamas, or a mix of llamas, alpacas, and maybe a guanaco out the back, you have probably noticed that the alpaca-only record sheets do not quite fit. The bones are the same. Good llama record keeping uses the same backbone as alpaca record keeping, with a handful of species twists that genuinely change what you write down.

This guide covers three things: what every camelid record needs, where llamas differ from alpacas in ways that matter for your records, and the country rules that decide what you are legally required to keep. None of it is hard. It just has to be consistent.

One reassurance up front. AlpacaKeep stores species per animal (llama, alpaca, guanaco, vicuna), so a single herd book covers a mixed camelid farm and reports split by species. You are not stuck bending an alpaca-only app around your llamas.

What every camelid record needs (the shared backbone)#

Whatever species you keep, the same core records carry the whole farm. Get these six right and almost everything else hangs off them.

• Identity. Name, microchip or transponder number, ear tag, date of birth, sex, colour, and species. Set the species on every animal so your reports split correctly later.
• Pedigree. Sire and dam, so you can see lineage and avoid mating close relatives. Keep this overview-level here. Our alpaca pedigree guide covers inbreeding and coefficient-of-inbreeding depth in detail.
• Health log. Every vaccination, dewormer, supplement, and treatment, with the date, product, dose, route, and who gave it. The medicine-register section below covers the legally required version of this.
• Weights and body condition over time. Body condition scoring works the same across camelids. See our alpaca body condition score guide; the method transfers directly to llamas.
• Movements on and off the holding. Who you bought from, who you sold to, and the dates. Several countries make this a legal requirement, not just good practice.
• Financials per animal. Purchase price, sale price, stud fees, vet costs. Optional, but it is how you find out whether the herd actually pays for itself.

Where llamas differ from alpacas (and your records should too)#

This is where the alpaca template starts to creak. The differences below are not trivia. Each one changes a record you keep.

Weight drives the dose, so log it before you medicate. Llamas are far heavier than alpacas. An adult llama commonly weighs around 130 to 200 kg, while an alpaca is commonly around 50 to 90 kg. Most camelid medicines are dosed by body weight, so an accurate, recent weight is the input for every meds round and every transport plan. Make a habit of logging a current weight before you dose, not a guess from six months ago.

Gestation runs a little longer, so your due-date tool needs the right figure. Llamas tend to carry a little longer than the roughly 345-day alpaca average. If you run a shared due-date tool across a mixed herd, it has to use the correct species figure or your cria-watch dates drift. Our cria watch calculator covers the alpaca timing; nudge the window out for your llamas.

Guard llamas need their own records#

Many llamas are not fibre animals at all. They guard sheep or goats against canid predators like coyotes, dogs, and foxes. A single gelded male bonded to the flock is generally more effective than running several llamas together.

If you keep a guard llama, your records should capture the working side of the job, not just health:

• Which flock or paddock the llama is assigned to.
• The bonding date, when it was introduced to the group.
• Behaviour notes over the first weeks, while it settles.
• A predator-incident log: date, what was lost or threatened, and the outcome.

That incident log is the only honest way to tell whether the llama is earning its keep. An often-cited Iowa State University extension study (Franklin and Powell, 1994) reported that around 80% of sheep producers rated guard llamas effective or very effective, with average predator losses falling from roughly 11% to about 1% after a llama was introduced. Your own log is the farm-level version of that number.

Fibre is double-coated, so one micron number tells less#

Most llamas are double-coated: coarse guard hair over a finer undercoat, which has to be dehaired before it is wearable. Alpacas have been bred toward a single fine coat. That difference shows up in the numbers. Llama fibre commonly measures coarser, roughly 25 to 35 microns, against roughly 18 to 25 microns for alpaca.

Because of the double coat, a single micron reading tells you less of the story for a llama than for an alpaca. So log the coat type, and if you send a sample for testing, note the guard-hair content alongside the micron figure. Our alpaca fibre grades guide explains how the grading works; for llamas, just remember the headline number is hiding two coats.

Pack, trekking, and wild-type camelids#

• Pack and trekking llamas. Track training progress, load history, soundness, and conditioning, not show results. A llama that carries weight needs a fitness and feet record more than a fleece record.
• Guanaco and vicuna. These wild-type camelids carry their own legal protections (vicuna fibre is covered by CITES). Keep identity and provenance records meticulously, because for these animals the paperwork is the whole point.

The medicine register: the record an inspector actually asks for#

If a vet or an inspector turns up, this is the record they will ask for first. So it is worth keeping properly.

Here is the legal backdrop. If your camelids are classed as food-producing animals (plain words: animals that could enter the food chain, which is the EU default even for a non-meat hobby herd unless they are specifically excluded), then EU law requires a treatment record for every veterinary medicine you use.

The exact fields come from EU Regulation 2019/6, Article 108. Treat this as a checklist you can tick off for every treatment:

• Date of first administration
• Name of the product
• Quantity given
• Supplier's name and address
• Evidence of acquisition (your proof you got it legitimately)
• Identification of the animal or animals treated
• The prescribing vet's name and contact, where applicable
• The withdrawal period, even if it is zero
• The duration of the treatment

Retention: keep these records and have them available to the authority (the body that inspects you) for at least five years. That is the EU rule. Your national livestock-register retention is a separate clock, so keep whichever period is longer.

This is the one place software earns its keep on day one. A good tool records the treatment, calculates and flags the withdrawal end date, and reminds you which animals are inside a withdrawal window before you sell milk, meat, or the animal itself. Two honest caveats. Withdrawal periods are a starting point: confirm them with your vet for your medicines and your region. And the app flags the window and asks you to confirm the vet-set period; it never invents a "safe to sell" date on its own.

For the timing and protocol side of treatments, our vaccination schedule and deworming schedule guides cover the "when and what." This section is about logging and keeping the record.

What the law actually requires where you farm#

Takeaway first: figure out your country's three boxes, then make sure your records or your software fill all three.

1. Identification: does each animal need a microchip or tag?
2. Holding register: do you have to register the property and log arrivals and departures?
3. Medicine record: the EU treatment record above, or your national equivalent.

The detail differs sharply by country, so here is the scannable version. Read your row, then confirm with your own authority, because these rules change.

Rules last checked: June 2026.

Now the per-country detail, in plain terms:

• Italy. Individual electronic identification is mandatory: an injectable microchip in the neck, preferably on the left side. You register the holding and the animal in the BDN (the Banca Dati Nazionale, the national animal database, also called the anagrafe zootecnica) within 7 days of chipping, and movements are logged there. Corrective actions and sanctions apply from 1 January 2025.
• Austria. Report to your district administrative authority within 7 days of starting to keep camelids; the data sits in the VIS system. A vet must microchip the animal for official certificates, notifiable-disease vaccination, or when officially ordered. Pedigree and stud-book registration (LARA) is a separate thing from this legal reporting.
• Switzerland. Identification has been mandatory since the 31 August 2022 revision of the animal-epidemic ordinance, which came into force on 1 November 2022 (one rule, not two). New World camelids born in Switzerland after 1 November 2022 must be microchipped, and holdings register in the TVD (the animal movement database).
• Germany. Register the holding with the authority and keep a Bestandsregister (an inventory register) under the Viehverkehrsverordnung: your stock count on 1 January each year, plus every arrival and departure with the other party's name, address, and date. Keep it for 3 years after you stop keeping the animals. Whether you also report to your regional Tierseuchenkasse (the animal-disease fund) varies by Bundesland, so check your own state's rules.
• United Kingdom. This is the position to watch. There is currently no movement licence required for camelids, but camelid rules are under review, so verify against GOV.UK and APHA. Note that Scotland has a TB identification and movement order that can apply. Treat this as the current position and check it before you rely on it.
• United States. There is no single federal herd register. Interstate movement generally needs a Certificate of Veterinary Inspection from an accredited vet, plus official identification such as an approved ear tag or microchip. The exact tests and requirements are set by the destination state, so they vary state to state.
• Australia. A Property Identification Code (PIC) is legally required for any property keeping livestock, including camelids. NLIS individual-animal tracking for alpacas and llamas is currently voluntary but moving toward inclusion. New Zealand readers: check MPI, as the rules differ and we make no NZ-specific claim here.

One more clarification that confuses a lot of keepers. Your pedigree registry and your legal animal register are different records. The International Lama Registry records llama genealogy, and the Alpaca Owners Association registers alpacas with DNA-validated pedigrees. Those are private breed bodies. They do not replace the government register your country requires for disease traceability, and the government register does not record your pedigree. You generally keep both.

Spreadsheet, paper, or software: choosing a tool for a mixed herd#

Paper and spreadsheets work fine until the herd grows, a vet inspection lands, or you need a withdrawal date in a hurry. That is usually the moment people start looking at proper camelid management software.

Here is what good software actually does for each record type, so the choice is about usefulness, not features for their own sake:

• Medicines: records the treatment and calculates the withdrawal end date, then flags any animal still inside its window.
• Breeding: turns a mating date into a species-correct due date and a cria-watch reminder.
• Weights: keeps a per-animal weight history, which is exactly the input your dose-by-weight medicines need.
• Mixed herds: stores species per animal, so a vaccination report or a withdrawal roster splits llamas from alpacas automatically.

That last point is the one that matters most for a mixed camelid farm. Pick a tool that treats llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuna as distinct species, not an alpaca-only app with everything forced into one bucket.

If you are coming off a spreadsheet, start logging today and worry about moving the historical data across as a separate step. Our records guide covers the day-to-day habit of keeping a clean herd book.

Start your camelid herd book#

AlpacaKeep is a modern web app, so it works on any device with no install. It is built and run on a real working camelid farm in Val Gardena, South Tyrol, which is also why species-correct records and EU-style medicine logging are baked in rather than bolted on.

When it launches, AlpacaKeep will be free for up to 8 animals, with multiple users and EU hosting. It is not live yet, but you can lock in your spot. Join the early-access list and be among the first to keep your whole mixed camelid herd in one place.

Whatever tool you land on, the principle is the same. Keep identity, health, movements, and your medicine register tidy and species-aware, and an inspection becomes a five-minute job instead of a scramble.