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Are your boys up to the job?

We don’t need to tell you how tough this year has been! The season’s constant fight against some pretty terrible weather has taken its toll on farmers and stock alike. Now that we are finally starting to get a glimpse of the elusive Big Yellow, it’s time to start looking ahead to lamb finishing and next season’s tupping. With this in mind, let’s get your vet on-farm to get their yearly ram action!  The reason we insist on performing this annual ritual is to ensure your m...

Working dogs in the hot summer months

The summer brings some heavy workloads on farms and high energy requirements for farm working dogs. Feed them a high fat, high protein diet to reduce musculoskeletal injuries and increase endurance. Burning all that energy creates increased body heat which becomes more difficult for them to regulate in hot weather. They only have a few sweat glands, in the pads and nose, and depend on evaporative cooling of exhaled moist air, panting, and air movements over the body surface. All of these in...

Weighing it up across the south

Weighing allows you to be more accurate with weaning and drenching, plus it helps you better understand how your animals are tracking at crucial stages of their development.Replacement calves are the future of every herd. Getting weaning weights right will give them the best chance post-weaning. Focusing on targets during this part of their life can help your animals grow well and become good milk producers, maximising lifetime productivity when they enter the milking shed.Most dairy farms arenâ...

Scanning season swiftly approaching

In cows, the best time to age a pregnancy accurately is between 42 and 90 days after mating. For this reason, we usually recommend two scanning sessions:A first scan in January to age the earlies and heifers.A second re-check scan a while later to confirm the empties and age the lates. Early age scans are used to figure out accurate calving dates and help you make informed decisions for your herd.If you have used a synchrony hormone programme for your heifers, an early age scan 6 weeks afte...

Udder basics

With the bad weather this spring, the lambing season has been particularly hard in many aspects; including farmers experiencing more cases of mastitis than usual.  Mastitis occurs as bacteria enter the udder resulting in an infection causing swelling and inflammation. Uddering ewes to pick up mastitis should be done by gently squeezing both sides of the udder while the ewe is in the race, feeling for generalised hardness or lumps of one or both quarters. Lumps in front and behind the u...

Grazing new grass paddocks

New grass paddocks offer great feed quality and low parasite burden – a recipe for great lamb growth! However, they also have the potential to make any drench resistance really bad, because if you drench onto this pasture and worms survive, you will end up with a parasite population that is 100% resistant! Refugia is essential on new grass paddocks. We MUST put some parasites on here that have not been exposed to drench, but, we also need to benefit from this low challenge area....

Watch out for flystrike this season!

Warm and wet weather provides the perfect conditions for blowflies - and we've had a lot of rain!  Early protection not only protects your flock, but also gives you peace of mind over the holiday season. Managing your risk will help your lambs thrive, and your ewes recover from a tough spring. Looking at the next couple of months, it is important to closely monitor your stock so you can take action before you have a problem. When deciding on the best prevention treatment for your ...

A tail to tell? Tail scoring study results

The problem is, even though docking has been banned since 2005, damaged tails - where the damage breaks the connections between the vertebrae - are now one of the most common cattle welfare-related issues brought before New Zealand courts (R. Laven, personal communication).There are varying degrees of damage, some of which may be caused by sheds or milking apparatus (cup removers) and some which may be caused by people.Sometimes, the tail bones are actually broken, sometimes dislocated, or somet...

Caring for pets over the holidays

The Christmas holidays are fast approaching. If you are heading away, now is a good time to start thinking about what plans you need to make for your pets.  Will you leave them at home and get someone to come and care for them?  Is booking them into a cattery or kennel a better option?  Or, can you take your pet away with you? Leaving your pet at home You may decide to leave your pet in the comfort of its own home, with a neighbour or friend either house-s...

Signs your horse may have gastric ulcers

Gastric ulcers have become more widely recognised in performance horses, as well as in racehorses, in the last 10 - 15 years. Previously, horses with ulcers were expected to look run down, perhaps ‘tucked up’, skinny and/or with a poor coat. They could be grumpy/unhappy and also picky with their feed – sometimes even completely ‘off’ their hard feed and preferring to eat fibre. Recent research shows, however, that many horses with ulcers may not display these signs and instea...

Preventing lameness

As we all know, lame cows are time-draining, costly and a welfare issue. So what measures can be put in place to try and prevent a high number of lameness cases?...

Observing cow health with tech

Spring is the period of biggest change for cows, so we see more health alerts corresponding with changes in rumination and activity. These alerts can be due to many different disease processes, such as metabolic disease (milk fever, ketosis etc.), mastitis, metritis – the list goes on.One example of a more serious disease process was recently seen by vets Dan and Penny.  The cow had a history of recurrent health alerts corresponding with drops in rumination post-calving and had been ...

Surge in salmonella

Salmonella in cattle is not usually common. In a typical season, we may only see one or two significant outbreaks and you might get the odd individual case. A farm might only have a case once in 20 years. Because of this, many stock are unvaccinated against the disease....

Choosing the right pet

Pets bring so much joy to a family. They give affection and love, make us laugh, and have a positive effect on our mental health. However, before choosing a new furry addition, it is important to put thought into what kind of pet is the most suitable for your household.  Things you need to consider are:  Your lifestyle  Do an honest assessment of your lifestyle and think about how a pet will impact this. Your daily routine with children, work hours and other commitments, as well a...

Itchy dogs

Allergic skin disease can cause significant discomfort to companion animals and is a common reason for dog owners to seek care for their pets. The cause of the itchy problem will most commonly be due to: ectoparasites (usually a flea allergy); food allergy; bacterial infection, or an environmental allergen, such as tree and grass pollens, moulds and dust mites. This condition is known as atopy....

Stress-free weaning: reducing the pneumonia risk

The most common form of weaning in NZ is abrupt weaning. This is the sudden and complete separation of the ewe and her lambs, avoiding visual, auditory or olfactory contact after weaning. Abrupt weaning generates behavioural, physiological and immunological responses in the lamb, affecting their health and growth, increasing their susceptibility to disease and decreasing weight gain....

The recovery phase

Hopefully, when you read this, we have had a good stretch of weather that is a significant improvement on the hideous weeks we had during spring. Even if this is the case, there is still some recovery work to do with our stock. A big effort is needed to keep the effects of a very wet spring within the current season.   We all know that effective reproduction drives our productivity. Most of the capital stock in our regions have lost significant weight and regaining this is key to ...

Using the right drench for your calves

Drenching is an essential element of calf rearing. It allows you to control calves' exposure to several parasites commonly found in our pastures.  When burdened with worms, calf growth rates can be limited by up to 30% due to loss of appetite and poor nutrient absorption. If burdens go unmanaged, they can lead to more severe illnesses, such as parasitic gastroenteritis or bronchitis and pneumonia from lungworm infestation.  It’s likely that having such a wet spring as we’...

To spay or not to spay?

Most female farm working dogs are not spayed until working performance has been proven, to determine if she has good breeding potential. However, many of the most common health problems with working bitches are associated with their reproductive functions, with Huntaways more susceptible to the below conditions than Heading dogs:   Mis-mating Dystocia (whelping difficulties) Mammary gland neoplasia (cancer) Pyometra (severe uterine infection) Vaginal fold ...

Diagnosing mastitis bugs with DairySmart

A wet spring won’t be helping how many cases of mastitis you’re seeing, which impact both production and upcoming reproduction, as well as being costly. We can help diagnose what bacteria is causing mastitis in your cows using our new Jupiter testing machines from DairySmart, now in the Winton and Gore clinics....

Eye disease in working dogs

We all know how vital working dogs are on farms. However, just like humans, these hardworking canines are susceptible to eye diseases. Here are a few common ones to watch out for: 1. Conjunctivitis: Often referred to as "pink eye," conjunctivitis is an inflammation of the lining of the eye and eyelid. When a dog has pink eye we can see redness, squinting, and discharge. Like in humans, conjunctivitis can be caused by bacteria or viral infection, allergies, or getting irritating things (like...

Pre-weaning drenching

To do or not to do? As always, it will depend on your farm system, pasture management and stock numbers. So, a quick chat with your KeyVet could help with deciding what will be best for your farm.  Many farmers will agree that giving lambs a pre-weaning drench will help boost their growth rates and lower their dag score, but, as drench resistance becomes an ever-pressing matter, we must constantly ask ourselves if every drench is necessary.  WormBoss in Australia has complete...

Are your boys up to the job?

Bulls need to be in top shape in order to achieve maximum success. Their body condition should be on target – BCS 5+ for dairy bulls and 6+ for beef bulls – and they should have adequate trace element levels (magnesium, copper, selenium and zinc). All bulls should meet minimum scrotal circumference targets for their age and breed prior to mating and should have sound sexual organs.  It’s also a good idea to check they have healthy, high-quality sperm to avoid any disappointment come s...

Staff farm focus: Breeding 'Minis'

By crikey did we have high hopes for these wee guys! We had obtained 20 straws of a Miniature Galloway bull, named Boris, to put to some cows with lower breeding worth (BW) values. The photos of his offspring were so Instagrammable, it was ridiculous!  At scanning time, we were stoked to learn that 13 were in-calf to Boris. These ladies got the royal treatment and stayed on grass most of the winter, and then had a calving pad basically to themselves.  The excitement for the f...

Good mating management

Achieving more days in milk from each cow by getting them in-calf earlier in the repro season and reducing empty rates, with the flow-on effect of reducing replacement rates, are just two of the ways that mating can create signification gains in efficiency.Reproductive success requires a year-round focus but, with mating imminent, it’s now time to ensure that your hard work pays off and you hit repro targets.Aim for these numbers:>75% cycling 10 days before planned start of mating (PSM);At ...