I think we need some rain; I cannot see much in the forecast I am afraid! Be aware of those spring calvers that are going to the bull now and assess if they need supplementing, cows losing weight will struggle to conceive, especially in this heat.
I am pleased to see many of you taking advantage of the FETF Grant funding, it is an ideal opportunity to upgrade your handling facilities or improve biosecurity on your farm. There are a few days left so please go and see what there is available to you. I know I bang on about the AHWP grants but I have more good news there as well; you are now able to claim additional funding for multiple groups on the same farm. Many early lambers are weaning lambs now which is an ideal opportunity to asses worm burdens and wormer effectiveness. To check whether lambs need worming we would strongly recommend having a worm egg count performed at the surgery on a pooled dung sample. If you collect fresh dung samples from 10 to 15 individual lambs and bring them to the surgery, we will pool equal quantities from each sample to create a representative sample from the group to test. This will determine the level of the worm burden that lambs are carrying and whether they need treating. For the AHWP grant funding, worm egg counts can also be performed after worming (post treatment samples) to determine how much resistance there is to the wormer that you have used. In this case the dung samples should be checked either 1 week after treatment with a levamisole-based drench or 2 weeks after a white drench or ivermectin based treatment. If there is a significant worm egg count in a post treatment sample then resistance is suspected. Resistance to a specific wormer is considered to be present when the product is less than 95% effective, in other words 5% or more of the worms survive after dosing. Below this level, resistance will go undetected and performance is unaffected. The problem will get steadily worse as the resistant worms survive dosing and lay eggs which then hatch out to produce more resistant worms. This means that the percentage of worms that are resistant increases. At resistance levels above 20% the problem will affect performance but may not be dramatic. At levels of 50% resistance, the poor performance becomes very obvious. Please get in touch if you would like to know more about the AHWP, it really is money to help you do a better job.
Most of you will have heard about the changes in the Blue Tongue Restriction Zones. From the 1st July, the whole of England was placed inside the Zone. Essentially for movement within England life has become much simpler with no restrictions for moving to slaughter or farm to farm within England. However; if you need to move cattle or sheep to Wales or Scotland there are specific requirements including pre-movement testing or vaccination in certain scenarios, even if travelling direct to slaughter, you can check which rules apply by using the movement checker tool from AHDB. https://ruminanthw.org.uk/bluetongue-virus-hub/bluetongue-movements-checker/ We await the next change in the rules but if anyone is considering selling cattle into Wales or Scotland, the easiest route is to vaccinate with Bultavo BTV3. This needs 2 jabs 3 weeks apart and then a further 3 weeks wait for full immunity. The current supply of vaccine is good!
We continue to see medicine supply issues, Norbrook have had serious problems with their manufacturing, as they manufacture a huge proportion of UK veterinary pharmaceuticals, there are serious knock on effects. We have managed to plug most of the holes where they appear. We have stretched our Alamycin injectables till now but we are having to switch to an imported product now, with no date of a re-supply. Betamox and Pen-strep are still unavailable although we have an imported product to replace Pen & Strep. Zactran is also having a blip, we can use alternatives so please talk to us about that.
Ram sales will soon be upon us, so now is a good time to get your rams tested in good time before they are needed. We are very happy to test these at the surgery, please call to book a slot.