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X LVETS NEWS
AUTUMN 2013 ISSUE
LIVESTOCK MATTERS
4
This year's Livestock 2013 returned to Birmingham's NEC for another busy two days. It was
fantastic to see so many people proudly wearing the unmissable FarmSkills green t-shirts. There
were so many different activities going on, and so many friendly faces discussing everything
from colostrum quality to ‘what they were going to use their green bucket for
?
’.
Livestock 2013
The BVD skittles drew lots of attention and
were a great tool for explaining the traffic
light warning system for BVD. This was also
highlighted during Jonathan Statham, Bishopton
Veterinary Group farm health planning seminar,
discussing a BVD free England; implementing
control on-farm. The California milk test and
‘the guess the weight of the calf’ were also
very popular; they provided a great opportunity
to get farmers to discuss current issues on-farm
and to have a go with equipment that is simple
to use and very effective. The weigh tapes
proved to be a valuable commodity and
something to be closely guarded to avoid any
mysterious disappearances!
We also had six laptops on the stand which
we were able to use to demonstrate the
Grassroots Herd Check programme; we had
lots of interest and offered a free Grassroots
Cell Check Lite report to anyone that signed
up on the stand. The laptops were also used
to demonstrate the new FarmSkills website,
both sites worked really well and it was great
to see farmers, students and advisors filling in
the ‘contact me’ page for more FarmSkills
information. The positive feedback from the
FarmSkills courses that have been run over the
past year was very encouraging too.
We would like to say a big thank you to
all the members that came along and
volunteered their time to man the XLVets stand
over the two days.