Back to Blog

Lambing kit

With the season soaring by, now is the time to start getting organised for lambing and start thinking about what supplies you might require come lambing time. We all know that prevention is key when it comes to animal health. There are a few products that can be used during lambing that may save you time and money further down the track. However, there will be times that animal health treatments are needed for various diseases. Making sure that plenty of these supplies are readily available when...

Mastitis investigations

Mastitis is such a frustrating and costly disease. When you are already busy the last thing you want to do is treat a whole lot of cows at the end of milking. It can also be frustrating as there are so many causes. It is a costly disease with treatment cost only being a part of the whole cost. Lost production, labour, wasted milk, culling for example are all factors taken into consideration when we say the average cost of a clinical case is $200. When you multiply that by the number of cases you...

Worms in working dogs

A lot of farmers will remember the good old days of compulsory dog dosing to protect our sheep against sheep measles. Lucky for us, this worked brilliantly and because of this we no longer have to endure these days, however monthly worming is still very important. The incidence of sheep measles is low in New Zealand but if it were to increase again it would have a negative impact on our meat export market. Sheep measles are caused by a tapeworm. The life cycle involves both sheep and dogs. In a ...

Drench capsules

What is the reason for using capsules? To reduce the peri parturient rise (PPR) in ewes. ...The what?The PPR is a rise in egg output seen in ewes before they lamb, as their immune system is put under pressure in late gestation. When does the PPR happen? How long does it last?It can extend from 2-4 weeks pre lamb, to 6-8 weeks post-lamb. Why is the PPR so important?More eggs on the pasture results in lambs picking up more larvae in spring, so if this is reduced, lambs have less of a challenge. ...

WelCalf

WelCalf is an on-farm programme designed to help dairy farmers monitor and improve key animal health markers affecting calves and how they impact on calf well-being, performance and profitability....

Bovine fluid therapy

Using these tools nice and early will get cows up and feeling better faster, which will save you not just time but also money in expensive drugs. Picture this: Your favourite 8 year old dairy cow has been having a bit of trouble calving. You’ve had to jump in and help, and have just managed to pull out a huge but thankfully alive heifer calf. The cow looks much happier with the calf out but seems quite weak and shakyYour worker goes off to get the colostrum herd in one morning after a stressfu...

Sleepy sickness

Sleepy sickness, twin lamb disease, lambing sickness, and pregnancy toxaemia are all names for the same thing: a disease in late pregnancy, often of multiple bearing ewes, occurring as a result of excessive fat breakdown. Historically, widespread outbreaks of sleepy sickness was common, and a large number of ewes died as a result. While sleepy sickness is still common, farmers have a better understanding of the risk factors causing the disease, and can provide better nutrition over winter. The m...

Downer cow prevention

Springer Cow Transition Management - it’s just around the corner. In winter 2018 we hosted the Upper Cow Roadshow - with guest speaker, international expert on the transition science of dairy cows- Peter DeGaris. The ‘Upper Cow’ phrase never caught on but it remains very relevant. The best way to treat downer cows- is to prevent them from happening in the first place - hence ‘upper cows’. There is a brief outline below, detailing what a typical Southland farm did last season (herd of 8...

Tip of the iceberg or an invisible problem….

We all know about milk fever (clinical hypocalcemia) right? And we all know that it can be stressful if we get many of these cases? But how much do we know about the not immediately visible form of this disease, called subclinical hypocalcemia? Some farms encounter issues with wobbly and down cows due to milk fever more than others, but it’s hard to find a farm that does NOT have to treat a single case. World wide (including NZ) the incidence of clinical hypocalcemia over calving is on average...

Calf scours vaccine

At an already stressful time of the year, sick and scouring calves is frustrating and demoralising. Extra time spent having to look after these calves means: less of a break for the calf rearerless time and energy put into healthy calveslower growth rates in calves resulting in future production and fertility lossesless replacements than required due to deaths.Calves require antibodies from their mother as they are born with no immunity. These antibodies are not passed through the placenta; ther...

Bearing prevention

Farming in the current situation, with most farms having a high stocking rate, feed is being carefully managed. It is great to see lots of well conditioned healthy stock in the paddocks. In the studies that have looked at bearings, they have confirmed that a risk factor for bearings is ewe weight gain between mating and scanning. This is good news in current times – maintenance feeding may reduce your chances of bearings. (If at all possible, don’t drop weight though, as we still need the ew...

Retrieving for duck dogs

Most puppies that are destined to be duck shooting dogs are ‘gundogs’ and as such are natural retrievers. It is important to get started with retrieving training early as possible as it will make training later on much easier. We recommend getting a special toy that you ‘reserve’ specifically for your retrieving training. This toy is not for playing tug with and should not be left lying around. You should get it out only for your retrieve training sessions. Good choices are gundog ‘bu...

Covid-19: Level 2

The team has been hard at it, with everything just taking longer, but we love what we do, and we're ready for more. ...

Separation anxiety

As we head into level 2 and we start going back to our daily lives of work, sports, and leaving the house, there may be some confusion for our furry friends who have become accustomed to us being in their bubble for the past 6 weeks. Now that you are gone for long periods during the day there may be some confusion from our cats and dogs. Why are they not sitting next to me, where have they gone, why arent we going for a walk today? Our pets can suffer with anxieties, just like we can. Some pets...

Salmonella in cattle

A silent & costly killer in the South?There are many species of Salmonella bacteria which affect many species of animals including humans. They are bacteria of the gut that are carried and spread by carrier animals, who usually carry infection without any symptoms, but shed enough bacteria to go on and infect other animals. These animals can shed bacteria through infected faeces and aborted material, which in turn can be spread by scavenging animals such as hawks, seagulls, mice and rats. The d...

Colt castration

Castration of colts is generally a routine procedure that can be done from anytime once two testicles have descended into the scrotum. Colts can be castrated from when they are still on their mother right through to older stallions that have served mares. Castration is usually done in the paddock at the owner’s property under a short general anaesthetic. This means the colt needs to be well handled enough to inject drugs into the vein. The procedure involves surgically removing the testicles a...

Covid-19: Level 3

This week, alongside the rest of the country, we learnt about the transition from level 4 to level 3. Like many of you, we have been working throughout, and are looking forward to being able to do a few more things (always with ours and your safety top of mind). We know everyone is getting hammered with communications - so hopefully you will enjoy our wee video, and a brief update below. What can we do for you in level 3? On-farm - we can do most things except anything face to face - consults an...

Big leg in horses

In the last year we have seen an increasing number of cases of horses presenting with a very swollen leg that are dramatically lame. This condition has a number of names - big leg, cellulitis or lymphangitis. As horses have no soft tissue or muscle in their lower legs, any sort of trauma can cause swelling. This swelling is mostly soft to feel and horses can walk or show only minor lameness. This sort of swelling will go away with exercise (which moves the fluid back into circulation) or respond...

Bovine Digital Dermatitis

Digital dermatitis is a skin disease of cattle, which usually affects the skin of rear feet, midline just above the bulb of the heel. Many herds in all provinces of New Zealand have a few cases in their herds but are unaware because the lesions in the early stages do not cause lameness. If not treated the infection gradually spreads through the herd....

Broodmare vaccinations

Vaccinating broodmares during pregnancy has two ultimate goals, protecting the mare from abortion and protecting the foal from diseases once born. Equine Herpes Virus Protects from abortion from infection with EHV-1.Course of 3 intramuscular injections given during the 5th, 7th and 9th months of pregnancy.Needs repeated every pregnancy. Tetanus If the mare is previously vaccinated one intramuscular injection given 4 weeks out from due date.If not vaccinated give a course of 2 shots, 8 weeks and ...

New treatment regime for lame cows

For many of us when treating lame cows, the standard treatment is to do a corrective trim of the problem area and if it is a moderate or severe lameness then apply a hoof block to the other claw. This has been the standard treatment for many years, however only a small percentage of farmers and vets consider using a pain relief/anti-inflammatory on top of this eg. Metacam, Key, or Rimadyl. When we actually stop to think about this, it is quite interesting why pain relief is not commonly used. La...

Diagnosis of stock loss during Covid-19 lockdown

While part of our lives are in standstill, there are still parts that will continue as per usual. One being the frustration of unexplained stock mortality. Particularly in the NZ dairy industry, mortality is still poorly understood. What do we know?There is very little robust data on the annual incidence of loss, nor of the causes of death of dairy cattle. Mortality in sheep, beef and deer is also poorly understood due to lack of reporting and general seasonal assumptions. How can we continue to...

Overstayer lambs

Wow what an unusual situation we are in! Not one of us would have predicted this at the start of the new decade. One of farming's biggest challenges at the moment is the difficulty of getting stock off farm. It is affecting all farming businesses at present, as meat works develop systems to protect their teams and keep the work flowing. The outcome has been a much reduced flow. With regard to having more lambs on farm now and looking into the uncertain future - we have to focus on keeping them i...

Respiratory disease in youngstock

Respiratory disease in youngstock is unfortunately never as cut and dry as we’d hope. There are many causes of coughing and breathing difficulties from pneumonia, calf diphtheria to lungworm. There are also many factors which influence the calves’ ability to fight disease; from trace elements, nutrition, disease status (e.g. BVD, IBR) to environmental challenges. Lung disease can start early - in the calf shed. Pneumonia of dairy calves is a disease of young, housed calves. The cause of the ...

Scrotal mange

Chorioptic or Scrotal Mange is an major cause of poor breeding soundness in New Zealand rams. The causative mites, Chorioptes bovis, live and feed on the skin of sheep, goats, cattle and horses. In sheep, both rams and ewes can carry the mite, however it is often of more significance in the rams, where the mites can cause a hypersensitivity reaction. This hypersensitivity reaction leads to an increase in testicular temperature, resulting in poor fertility, testicular hypoplasia or testicular atr...