Is your bull up to the job?
Is your bull up to the job? Bull fertility testing is an essential service to ensure that your bull is capable of doing what he is bred to do – getting your cows in calf. This testing ensures you are minimising any issues with the bull that can be detected before it’s too late. A […]
Calf disbudding
Calf disbudding Raising dairy calves is a process that involves intensive management. From the first day in the calf shed the calf will move through many steps before heading out to grazing. A vital part to get right is disbudding and the timing of this is very important. One of the main problems we encounter […]
Brucellosis in rams
Brucellosis in rams Brucellosis is a bacterial disease caused by members of the genus Brucella. It is an important zoonosis and is a significant cause of reproductive losses in animals. The disease is most commonly thought of and identified in sheep flocks. The pathogen is Brucella ovis and is naturally transmitted from ram to ram and/or ewe […]
Orphan lambs
Orphan lambs Hypothermia frequently occurs in newborn lambs, especially when the weather is bad or they don’t get a feed of colostrum within the first few hours of life. If a lamb will suckle it should be offered a bottle-feed of colostrum to provide energy. If the lamb won’t suckle it might require stomach tubing. […]
Salmonella in sheep
Salmonella in sheep It is common for farms to experience outbreaks after a dry spell in the summer when the pasture freshens up in the autumn (post-weaning through to mid-pregnancy). It can also occur later in pregnancy. Salmonella most often targets good conditioned two-tooth and mixed-age ewes and rams, and usually presents as sudden death. […]
Interpreting feed analyses
Interpreting feed analyses We have been asked by many farmers over my years of clinical practice to explain and interpret feed analyses of varying products. Here we will focus on pasture and silage … Dry matter (DM) DM is the part of a foodstuff or other substance which would remain if all its water content […]
Biosecurity and your neighbours
Biosecurity and your neighbours Infectious diseases can challenge the performance and threaten the lives of animals. This risk can extend across fence lines, so unless your farm is bordered on all sides by roads and/or rivers, or double fenced, biosecurity needs to be addressed. Diseases to consider include Bovine Virus Diarrhoea, Johne’s disease, Tuberculosis, Brucella […]
The sleepy ewe
The sleepy ewe Do you have high levels of twin bearing ewes? Is your farm a bit tight on feed this year? Then your flock might be at risk of sleepy sickness (AKA pregnancy toxaemia or twin lamb disease). Sleepy sickness is a metabolic disorder of sheep seen in late pregnancy and is caused by […]
Palpating the ram
Palpating the ram Why do we do it and what are we looking for? Often in summer you can find your vet hunkered down in a race behind a line of woollies, what are we doing? We are palpating rams. This involves checking the testicles for defects to determine the ram’s soundness for breeding. It […]
Feeding your ewes in the autumn
Feeding your ewes in the autumn Well planned and managed feeding of ewes post weaning and in the period leading up to and around tupping is the first key step to successfully securing next seasons production. On hill country farms ewe condition should be the driver of the majority of management decisions. Condition on ewes […]