Animal Health

Coleg Sir Gar, in partnership with the Royal Veterinary College, has been awarded a project to work closely with the sheep sector to control and ultimately eradicate sheep scab.

Two leading livestock vets are urging farmers to vaccinate their livestock this winter for clostridial diseases as more animals are outwintered and vaccine boosters missed.

The Disease? Not On My Farm! initiative encourages farmers to take a preventative rather than reactive approach to animal health. During a recent roundtable, the campaign’s farm ambassadors considered the latest developments in the livestock sector and how industry recommendations are being implemented within their herds and flocks.

Efra Committee MPs have written to environment secretary Thérèse Coffey calling for ‘urgent action’ to address the immediate and longer term needs of the poultry sector.

The level of liver fluke is forecast to be relatively low for much of the UK, but the risk to grazing livestock on individual farms is becoming less predictable, say industry experts.

Feeding for optimum rumen function is a way farmers can help to maximise productivity from their herd and potentially improve sustainability, listeners on the latest Mole Valley Farmers’ Podcast heard. 

At transition the dairy cow is perhaps at her highest metabolic vulnerability – she is subject to demands which physiologically she often struggles to sustain. Energy and calcium are two prime examples. Post-calving the cow’s demands for both can suddenly increase by upwards of two-fold compared to what they previously were before calving.

For many years the National Sheep Association (NSA) has fought to increase awareness of the devastating issue of sheep worrying by dogs. So, as families prepare for the Christmas holidays, the association that represents UK sheep farmers is angered by a new festive family film inadvertently ignoring the seriousness of the issue.

New compulsory biosecurity and housing measures are set to come into force in Wales tomorrow (Friday 2nd December) to further protect birds against avian influenza.

MSD Animal Health UK Ltd has developed an innovative vaccine technology to increase the convenience of poultry vaccination on-farm.

Dairy farmers could be losing milk production worth tens of thousands of pounds by failing to protect their cows from heat stress during the summer, according to independent vet consultant Dr Tom Chamberlain from Chalcombe Ltd, speaking at a Lallemand Animal Nutrition workshop at Total Dairy in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Leading dairy innovator, smaXtec has launched TruDrinking, a new function which accurately records individual cow’s water intake. This latest technical advance is a world first in the sector-leading health monitoring system and helps farmers to optimise milk production and animal management.