News

Tuesday, 1 August 2017 - 12:32pm

The National Johnes Management Plan – What is it?

The National Johne’s Management Plan has been developed to help provide strategies to manage the control of Johne’s Disease on your farm.

PHASE II of the NJMP seeks to manage and reduce the incidence of Johne’s disease on farms through implementing one of the six strategies agreed by the group, and monitored on each farm by trained vets

Why bother?

Johnes is a complicated disease and any control...

Tuesday, 27 June 2017 - 5:14pm

We all know that excessive negative energy balance around calving causes problems - including poor fertility, LDAs and lameness.

Preventing this negative energy balance and the mobilisation of body fat reserves it causes, requires a multi-pronged approach.  

Body condition scoring tends to rely on a lot of things going right; on most farms there is the potential for one or more parts of the jigsaw to change, often without really being noticed until suddenly a problem is...

Tuesday, 27 June 2017 - 1:22pm

We now have a brand new programme of FarmSkills training, please click the link to view our comprehensive list of FarmSkills Courses for 2017.

To enable us to continue offering courses that are relevant to you, we would like to invite you to take part in a questionnaire.  It will take less than 2 minutes to complete and you can remain anonymous.

...

Monday, 26 June 2017 - 4:16pm

COWS - The industry body providing guidance on parasite management, have produced a new guide to liver fluke treatment for bought in cattle to minimise the chances of introducing resistant fluke.

Click the link, to download the pdf if you're considering buying any stock this summer/autumn.

Friday, 16 June 2017 - 9:08am

Here at St Boniface Vets, we are now offering a cattle IVF (in vitro fertilisation) to our clients as well as a conventional embryo service.  IVF should be considered as an alternative to MOET (multiple ovulation embryo transfer) for the following reasons:

  • A larger number of embryos can be generated in a shorter time frame as an egg collection can be made every two weeks
  • Eggs can be collected from juvenile heifers
  • Eggs can be collected from pregnant heifers...
Monday, 24 April 2017 - 1:49pm

As part of this latest issue, to focus on Crediton, we asked veterinary practice owner Tony Kemmish a few questions, to get to know him a little better and learn more about St Boniface Vets.

How old were you, when you realised you wanted to work with animals? There was a big age gap between me and my big sister and she married a farmer when I was only 10. For as long as I can remember I’ve grown up around all types of animals working on the farm. We’ve always had dogs...

Monday, 13 March 2017 - 9:49am

With lambing time already upon many of you and fast approaching the rest, this quarter we look at the care of the new born lamb.  Statistically, the majority of lambs are lost within the first 3 days of life.  This percentage could be as high as 15% in some flocks.  In the current market, with tight profit margins; improving lamb survival can make a real difference to profitability of the flock. A realistic target to aim for is 5% lamb mortality preweaning.

Ewe nutrition...

Wednesday, 22 February 2017 - 6:01pm

Recent research into calf rearing has shown that optimising heifer growth rates pre-weaning is vital for efficient heifer rearing and producing a healthy, high yielding dairy cow.

Keeping a record of colostrum management, growth rates, calf illness and calf mortality is therefore essential.  The XLVets Calf Tracker initiative has been designed as a monitoring system, which allows recording and bench marking of calf...

Friday, 17 February 2017 - 3:03pm

Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) is a disease of cattle that is still widespread in this country causing massive economic losses. It is estimated that 90% of herds have been exposed to BVD, with an estimated cost of £13-£31 per cow on farm.

Many countries throughout Europe have managed to eradicate the disease through national campaigns, but England is unfortunately behind the times with tackling this condition. However, the national campaign ‘BVD Free...

Tuesday, 17 January 2017 - 9:53am

The most likely diseases to cause scour are the viruses; Rota Virus and Corona Virus along with protozoa; Cryptosporidium and Coccidia and the bacteria; E. coli and Salmonella.  As only two of these causative agents are bacterial, antibiotics are often not required.

The age at which the calf is affected will give an idea of the likely pathogen and therefore appropriate treatment;

  • 1-3 days old is commonly bacterial in origin, therefore antibiotics may be...

Pages