14 / 20
WORKING
TOGETHER
FOR A HEALTHIER FUTURE...
13
LIVESTOCK MATTERS
F A R M S K I L L S
I have been working at Bishopton Veterinary Group since the end of
last year and am thoroughly enjoying being part of the team.
One of the reasons I wanted to work
for an XLVets practice is the opportunity
to get involved in farmer training and
discussion groups. I have a keen
interest in flock medicine and so
getting involved in the XLVets steering
group for the ‘stand up to sheep
lameness’ initiative seemed like a
great opportunity to get involved.
In order to make sure that I am up to
speed with delivering training, I have
attended various courses throughout
this year.
Firstly, I attended the VetSkills ‘train the
trainer’ course, which as the name
suggests, helps you learn how to train
effectively using different techniques.
The course is run over two days and is
very interactive involving various
games as well as a role play at the
end to practise your training skills to
the group. With my enthusiasm for
cookery, I taught the task of dicing a
mango neatly; somewhat removed
from calving cows and lambing sheep!
Following on from this, I have also
attended various flock health based
courses. A course particularly relevant
to the sheep lameness Farmskills course
was titled ‘building your sheep
business’, delivered by the sheep
consultant Lesley Stubbings. This course
was aimed to help vets become more
involved in flock health and to raise
awareness that lambing season is not
the only time we can be of service to
clients. This course gave me plenty of
food for thought and has helped me to
contribute to Bishopton’s Flock Health
Scheme, a service that we offer to our
farmers to allow a more proactive
approach to sheep. This course also
tied in very well with the XLVets ‘stand
up to sheep lameness initiative’, where
the key message to farmers is that
prevention is always better than cure
in flock medicine.
By LEANNE FORD,
BISHOPTON VETERINARY GROUP
FarmSkills sheep lameness courses
Leanne running her FarmSkills lameness course in October