Livestock Matters - Winter 2017/18

WINTER 17 ISSUE LIVESTOCK MATTERS 2 2 GRADUATE D I ARY Health planning In 2010 the practice made it compulsory for all farm clients to have a herd or flock health plan, in order to purchase medicines. So once a year, farmers sit down with their vet to review the past 12 months, discuss any production issues, and look ahead to the next year, e.g. plan vaccination and worming programmes. This health planning enables farms to keep up-to-date and efficient, and ultimately work together towards a more proactive approach. Some farmers have been health planning for several years now, and are really seeing the value! In a recent health plan, one farmer had introduced footrot vaccination and culling on a selected group of sheep, and in this year’s review we discussed the massive reduction in lameness cases in their flock. Even small changes can have a big impact. Many clients have been able to reduce the number of worming treatments used in their sheep because faecal egg counting has been adopted. Sheep are only wormed when egg counts show treatment is required; this means fewer anthelmintics are used, helping to reduce the risk of resistance development, as well as saving time and money. Sheep meetings Earlier this year we started an informal club for all our sheep farming clients in which different aspects of flock performance are going to be discussed, and the measuring and monitoring of key performance indicators, encouraged. About 20 farmers came to the first meeting where the focus was on the benefits of recording problems commonly encountered at lambing time such twin lamb disease, prolapses, and joint ill. The next meeting discussed the benefits of measuring growth rates and some farmers have been recording lamb weights at 8 and 12 weeks to help gain a better understanding of their flock. I came out of university with a lot of new ideas to help farmers improve their livestock management and performance, but I’m realising it’s often more about looking for the small wins. For instance, lambs still left at the back end cost the most money, because they’ll be fed concentrates and need more worming treatments. So if, having attended one of these meetings, a farmer makes one small change back on his farm which improves growth rates so lambs can get away sooner, then that’s a result! I grew up not too far from Hexham, and wanted to be a farm vet from a young age. Many of my friends lived on farms, and I was able to get my first lambing season at the age of 14. From there my interest continued to develop. I graduated from Nottingham Veterinary School in 2016 and after taking some time to go travelling, I started at Scott Mitchell Associates in the October. I was already aware of XLVets and the additional CPD available, and enjoyed attending the XLVets Graduate Training programme. It’s a relatively small team at the practice, and I feel really supported. I’m enjoying getting to know more of our farming clients and it was great to hear of the many successes at the Yorkshire Show, and the Royal Highland Show earlier this year. When I’m not working, I play netball, go skiing, and enjoy cycling around Northumberland. About Lauren Porteus