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Understanding Dry Cow Reduction

Breaking down the jargon so we can easily reduce antibiotic usage on farm. A short history of abbreviations AMU = antimicrobial use (‘antibiotics’)DCAT = dry cow antimicrobial therapy (‘dry cow’)ITS = internal teat sealants (‘teat seal’) Vets love to abbreviate things. I think it makes us feel important — BVD, PD, KVC. But, to be fair, the dairy industry does exactly the same and probably worse — SCC, FEP, BW, PW…. So the combination is deadly, and over the past fe...

What needs to be done before dry off?

With the end of the season coming, we catch up with vet Joel to work out what you need to have dialled in before you can hang up the milking apron....

Youngstock preparation for winter

Here are a few things to consider heading into our most challenging growing period... winter....

How are the youngstock weighing up?

Britt, our Weigh It Up lead shares what she has been seeing on farms lately, and shares the benefit of regular weighing. Calves are the future of every herd, achieving liveweight gains and maintaining monthly targets are essential. Focusing on this stage can help your animals become good milk producers and maximise lifetime productivity when they finally enter the milking shed. This is where Weigh It Up comes in; weighing monthly with Weigh It Up gives farmers the benefit of gathering all the in...

Salmonella season

With the start of Autumn, comes the start of another season for the risk of salmonellosis in cattle and your staff. Last year we saw several large outbreaks across Southland and the West Coast of Salmonella Typhimurium in dairy cows ranging from early January to late April. The outbreaks were estimated to cost between $15k - $130k in the form of cows that died, cows that were sick and required treatment, as well as loss of milk production. In addition, we have seen a few cases of abortion in fir...

Benefits of beef cattle pregnancy testing

Aged scanning in beef cattle allows you to better understand the needs of your herd. There are many advantages to age pregnancy testing your beef herd that can provide you with more information than standard wet/dry testing. Fetal aging is essential for understanding your herd’s reproduction performance and to make the right changes to improve results. ...

Getting optimum protection

Are your lambs fully, partially or not protected against clostridial disease? Every year we hear of lamb losses due to pulpy kidney. Some farmers have one, while others see a few each week - and it is always in their big lambs ready for the works! Such a shame to get them to this stage and for them to die in the paddock. Many lambs are vaccinated these days at tailing. This vaccine is the sensitiser and gets the body ready for an upcoming infection. But if that infection does not come and there ...

How to body condition score sheep

Why is it important? Body Condition Scoring (BCS) is a quick and easy management tool to increase productivity on your farm. Body Condition Scoring assesses the body fat of each animal, allowing you to compare ewes in your flock without worrying about breed, frame, gut fill and pregnancy. This means improved animal welfare and performance, increased conception rate, increased lamb weights, and more efficient use of feed. How to Condition Score To body condition score your flock, they should be p...

Itchy dog?

Notice your working dog itching and scratching more than normal? Fleas, allergies and infections are the most common causes. Itching is a really common problem among farm dogs. Itchy dogs can present in a number of ways including scratching, biting or licking at one or multiple areas of the body. The 3 most common causes of itching are parasites, allergies and infections....

Take action on flystrike

Vet Emily discusses how to be proactive on combating flystrike in the South. Flystrike is the most important external parasite of sheep in New Zealand, and yes, it's definitely in Southland. There are three species of blowfly that can initiate flystrike in sheep and two species that are secondary invaders. When and how does this happen? The main flystrike challenge period is November through to March. Adult flies and larvae, which have overwintered, become active and start to hatch once the soil...

Tech Talk: Remote Digital Autopsy (RDA)

Laura Dalzell is one of our lead RDA vet technicians, and we recently caught up with her to find out a little more about the RDA service. As well as traditional investigative autopsies, VetSouth also offers Remote Digital Autopsies (RDA) as an alternative. This service is handy to farmers who are looking to find out a quick answer to why things went wrong for their animal(s), and some solid solutions to take preventative action in the future. So Laura, what is an RDA? Similar to a traditional au...

When to Faecal Egg Count (FEC)?

A FEC (Faecal Egg Count) is a quick, relatively cheap, in-house test you can invest in for peace of mind, to ensure that you still have drenches that you can reliably reach for in the shed that work. With the temperatures rising, we get ideal conditions for parasites. This can be the perfect opportunity to do a drench check if you’re wanting a quick snapshot of whether your usual go-to drench is working or not with a simple in-house faecal egg count (FEC)....

Why use a Knockout drench?

By introducing a Knockout drench into your drenching schedule, you can combat drench resistant worms that have multiplied over the warmer months.Like most things in life, farming seems to be getting more complex rather than simple. You could say the same when it comes to drenching your lambs. As our knowledge of drench resistance continues to expand, as do the recommendations for using drenches in the best possible way. One way we can help reduce the build-up of resistant parasites is through th...

Balancing trace elements

Young stock or adults, trace elements are a big driver of health and performance in dairy systems. Although most farms appear to have a basic trace element plan for their stock, too often we will be asked to help in situations. These situations can be downer cows, sudden death, poor youngstock growth or health, poor mating results, or even bone fractures are occurring and where poor trace element levels (either too little or too much) can be the causative factor. There are now many methods by wh...

Drenching calves

Internal parasites (also known as worms) live in the gut and in high numbers can cause significant disease and subsequent production losses, especially in young stock. Animals get worms from eating larvae on pasture which develop into adult worms in the gut. These worms then shed eggs in the animal’s faeces, hatch into larvae and so the cycle continues increasing their numbers. As the weather warms up the larval challenge on the pasture increases, simultaneously the calves are being weaned and...

Healthy Hooves

Lameness is a major economic and welfare concern around the world, and NZ based systems are no exception. Whilst kiwi cows don’t spend the majority of their days standing on concrete, they can have big distances to walk and their feet still go through the same stressors during a normal milking. With the Healthy Hoof programme, we focus on the prevention of lameness with information and training on management and treatment. This will minimise the impacts of lameness on your cows, your staff and...

Is failure of passive transfer affecting your heifers?

Failure of Passive Transfer (FPT) occurs when calves fail to absorb sufficient quantities of immunoglobulin from colostrum in the first 24 hours of life.A recent New Zealand study indicates that, on average, about a third of calves (i.e. 33%) have FPT, but this prevalence varies widely between farms from 5% up to 80% of calves.Calves with FPT are immune compromised and, therefore, at a greater risk of disease and mortality. This effect is still evident at 12 months of age.Strategies to improve q...

Prep for pregnancy scanning

Large Animal Vet Claire shares her top tips for an easy scan. There’s a lot going on when heifers and cows are getting scanned. Numbers are getting thrown around all over the show: tag numbers, mating dates, days pregnant, the time the alarm went off to get on farm and so on. Here’s a list of things worth quickly thinking about before it’s your turn to scan. Anything that can help the scanning job go as smoothly as possible on the day, will help reduce the risk of scanning or recording err...

Scanning with Sunni

We talk all things scanning with large animal vet, Sunita McGrath. With our dairy and beef scanning seasons coming up, the team is busy training and getting fit to ensure they can continue to deliver the best scanning service. We caught up with largies vet Sunita, to find out why scanning is her favourite time of the year. Why do you love scanning so much, Sunni? "We work closely with the farmers to get to this point, it's like exam day and everyone gets a bit nervous! It is a great feeling to s...

Weigh It Up

An exciting new partnership with VetSouth and Weigh It Up.For a number of years now, Grant Heatherington has been servicing the deep south with his stock weighing service, Weigh It Up. Grant is based in Winton and we've worked alongside him over the years through his various roles, including with his Weigh It Up business. So we're stoked to announce that when Grant looked to his next venture in oyster shells, he first looked to us to help support him.So over the past months one of our experience...

Better genes through stud selection

When it comes to genes and stud selection, what is your top priority? If you can answer this you can work towards achieving it. This is especially true when you look at the performance of your stock. By identifying the things you want to work on, you will be able to purchase the genetics that will drive the improvement you are looking for. It’s not a one size fits all process - your focus will be different from other farmers. Which of these factors do you want? Bigger stockSmaller stock Better...

Clostridial and B12 vaccinations

Put your hand up if, every year in late summer, you have a beautiful mob of lambs ready to go to the works, then you find one or more suddenly dead in the paddock a few days before the truck comes? This tends to be relatively common on sheep farms, and also in some beef mobs too. This sudden death syndrome in fat, fast growing lambs is usually due to a clostridial bacteria causing Pulpy Kidney. It can also occur when lambs are on a high-octane summer crop. What can be done to prevent these death...

FEC drench check

“The objective of worm management is to minimize the impact of worms on animal performance while minimizing the selection for drench resistance” Beef & Lamb NZ 2013 Youngstock is the major contributor to worm populations in the paddocks. Any animals under 9 months old are highly susceptible to worms and so the traditional approach to drenching in many Southland farms has been to drench lambs at weaning time, right through until winter with a monthly drench. Going back to the objective of wo...

Fly Blow in the south: Prevalence, prevention and treatment

Flystrike is the most important external parasite of sheep in New Zealand, and yes, it's definitely in Southland. There are three species of blowflies that can initiate flystrike in sheep and two species that are secondary invaders. When and how does this happen? The main flystrike challenge period is November through to March. Adult flies and larvae, which have overwintered, become active and start to hatch once the soil temperature exceeds 12 degrees. Once you start seeing flies in your house ...

Growing great lambs

Today the sun is shining and I feel like I can hear the grass growing, so hopefully, a few more days like this and your lambs will be thriving. Lamb growth is influenced by feed, animal health, genetics, weather, and ewe condition/health. While the weather is out of your control, there are things you can do to manage lamb health. As we approach weaning, the risk factors for trace element deficiencies, some diseases, and stress increase. Lambs that grow faster will reach slaughter weights sooner,...