Rams:

Poor conception rates (too many barren ewes) are mostly due to sub-fertile rams, so being sure your rams will work is critical to a productive lambing.

Sperm production takes 49 days (7 weeks), so it takes that long for a ram to become fertile again after any problems.

Abortion Vaccines:

If you’re using vaccines against toxoplasma and enzootic abortion, these need to be given 1 month before the rams go in. Please order toxovax in plenty of time as it is only manufactured after orders have been placed and therefore takes longer to come in than most.

Worming:

We now have a brand new programme of FarmSkills training, please click the link to view on our website - training dates.

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.

Please click the link to take the survey most relevant to you.

1) Medicinal

Medicinal products are available which can help to control flies. Talk to us about the different options – we are now stocking Dectospot Spot On at a competitive price.

2) Target Larvae Development

We are going to focus on 2 types of Vector Borne disease - Summer Mastitis and Infectious Bovine Keratoconjunctivitis. 

Summer Mastitis

Summer mastitis generally occurs in non-lactating animals (cows and heifers) during the summer months. It is a bacterial disease caused by a number of bacteria acting together (synergistically).  It is believed to be spread primarily by the fly Hydrotea irritans.

Flies are notorious for causing problems to cattle both by their nuisance factor and by transmitting diseases between animals.

In the UK there are at least 20 species of fly which feed on cattle.  Different species of flies feed on different secretions or tissues.  Some pierce the skin and feed on blood; while others feed on sweat, skin secretions, saliva, or tears (some flies also feed on urine or faeces).

There are two ways in which flies cause harm to cattle:

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?

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 apparent.