Say Hello, Wave Goodbye.

Been a big month for staff changes at Merlin. Natalie has just started her maternity leave, with her second baby due in early April. Although not in the clinic, she is planning to keep working on our new website from home. We all wish her all the very best for the future and look forward to seeing her back in the practice sometime in 2010. Replacing her at Kelso on a full time contract we welcome Neil Anderson, fresh from completing a PhD in Edinburgh. Prior to that he spent 8 years working in farm and mixed practice in the UK with some time in New Zealand and Australia. Just to make life more hectic for Neil starting a new job, he and his wife Louise (also a vet) have just had a little baby girl, Cara, now 4 months old. They are living in Kelso and we all hope they settle in quickly to practice life and enjoy living in the Borders.

Good news from Duns, Diana recently gave birth to a little baby girl, Alice May, a first baby for Diana and Richard. Again we will be looking forward to seeing her back in practice when her maternity leave finishes. Over at Galashiels David has just had an operation on his hip, which went very well, but he will be off work for at least 3 months and possibly slightly longer. We all wish him a speedy and full recovery. To help with staffing in his absence Iain Lathangie, who previously worked at Kelso, has been employed on a part time basis to help with the farm side of the business as we enter the very hectic calving and lambing seasons. (RA)

Pharmaceutical Companies Change Hands.

The number of Animal Health drug companies is contracting - Schering Plough recently bought Intervet, and Pfizer have just bought Fort Dodge. Big companies getting bigger! They often have to drop products they previously sold due to a monopoly position - this can mean that we are no longer able to stock a particular drug and may recommend an alternative. Usually this is because buying terms change and to remain competitive we may make changes. This lack of manufacturers is a concern for product choice and usually leads to price pressure in an upwards direction, with reducing options for supply our buying options become very limited. (RA)

Vaccinations before Calving.

It's been a difficult time this year to squeeze in all the vaccinations required to prevent disease and protect the baby calves - not to mention the compulsory Bluetongue vaccinations. Uptake has been very good, a very professional approach by Borders farmers. You want to make sure you don't overload the cows immune system but also you need to make sure that you get the best out of each vaccine you use, so best practice is to separate vaccinations by a couple of weeks if possible. No matter where I look BVD infection is creating issues, it really is a nasty little virus, so capable of spread and can and will create havoc. Vaccination alone may keep some sort of lid on the losses, but if it is established in the cows then blood testing to find the carriers is the only way forward.

Leptospirosis is much more of a stealth disease, rarely causes severe obvious disease but nibbles away especially at the breeding rate with abortions, foetal death, stillbirths and sick cows after calving. Vaccination is an essential control. Calf scour due to Rotavirus/Coronavirus and E.coli is still the biggest killer of baby calves, plus all the extra effort and time spent treating calves. Vaccination with Rotavec Corona, combined with good colostrum management is a superb method of control. To control these diseases we are currently using the following vaccines.

Calf Scour - RotavecCorona
BVD - Pregsure
Leptospirosis - Leptavoid H

Give us a call to discuss your vaccine programme; these preventative herd vaccines are now very realistically priced.

 

Sheep Nutrition.

This winter we have seen a massive increase in the diagnosis of liver fluke in our sheep flocks, with fluke eggs being detected in almost all faecal samples being sent for analysis. While chronic fluke can be readily treated, damage done to the liver can result in poor condition and failure to adequately process nutrition at a crucial stage during pregnancy. This is especially relevant this year where forage may not be as good quality as in other years. Inadequate late pregnancy nutrition can lead to a whole range of subclinical problems such as poor lamb birthweights, high levels of lamb deaths, and poor colostrum and milk production by the ewe and poor lamb growth rates. All of which leads to extra time spent nursing lambs at an already busy time of year!

Feeding according to scanning results and paying close attention to body condition scores can help. However, a more accurate assessment of the nutritional status of your flock can be made by taking blood from a sample of the flock and looking at the energy status of individual ewes. This allows greater control over concentrate feeding and can indicate where increases are required or allow efficiency savings to be made with confidence that lambing performance will not be compromised.  For example, it is possible to use blood testing to reduce concentrate levels in single-bearing ewes, so helping to reduce feed costs. It should be pointed out that these techniques can still work well in flocks that do not scan. Controlling body condition also reduces the number of prolapses seen.

Blood sampling should be performed 2 - 4 weeks before lambing is due to start. Any further away from lambing, the ewes have yet to reach the high risk period - any closer, and there is not enough time to make any adjustments. If the ewes are separated and fed according to the numbers of lambs expected, at least 5 ewes in each group should be sampled. If they have not been scanned, then a random selection of 15 - 20 ewes should be sampled.

As well as energy, protein status is also very important for milk production, and so ensuring adequate colostrum to the lamb. Especially in housed sheep, protein supply can be low due to the use of straw or poor quality hay - both of which are low in protein. Minerals and trace elements can also be checked if required.

If you would like any further information or advice about the nutrition of your sheep flock, please contact your usual surgery. (PM- Gala)

Vaccinations before Lambing.

Not quite so complicated as in cows but equally as necessary. The main vaccine, essential for lamb survival, is Heptavac P - this is quite a complex vaccine, protecting lambs against diseases like lamb dysentery, pulpy kidney, some strains of pneumonia, from birth until 10-12 weeks of age in many cases. As it has so many components it can be a challenge for the ewe to recognise all the agents and produce antibodies against them. For this reason vaccine should be given before the ewes are too stressed, so 6 weeks before lambing is the best time. This allows time for the antibody proteins to be manufactured and stored in the colostrum. Without good transfer of colostrum the protection doesn't make its way into the lamb. As Pete mentions before, the quantity and quality of colostrum available is greatly influenced by the nutrition and disease status of the ewe in the last 4 weeks of her pregnancy. Another vaccine commonly used is Eryvac, to protect against joint ill caused specifically by the bug Erysipelas. Same principles apply, ewes need time to respond and protection must pass to the lamb via colostrum.

A slightly different vaccine used at this time is Scabivax to protect against the ORF virus. A more miserable infection of the udder of ewes and lips of lambs is hard to imagine. Mastitis, dead ewes, starving lambs, the list makes grim reading. Now is the time to vaccinate, at least 6 weeks before lambing, time to allow the scab to form and die off, so that live virus does not persist in the lambing sheds. Note this vaccine should only be used if the disease has been diagnosed on the farm previously. On many farms it is the lambs only that are vaccinated, if you need more advice then please give your usual vet a call. We have a supply of the pre-lambing vaccines at competitive prices. (RA)

New Bull.

New bull home? It's possible he arrived with a written health status for BVD, IBR and Lepto. If not you should find out soon. Even if he has the details, it is a good idea to let us look at the results. Bulls that are free of disease are at real risk of coming across IBR and BVD at the sales. This can have consequences for breeding. Best to isolate the bull, then have a check blood test after 21-28 days to check the levels. Then we can make sure he is not a threat to himself or the herd in general.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Print