Welcome to the livestock page of Merlin Veterinary Group.
Initially starting from the Border Agricultural Societies need for a veterinary surgeon in the late 1800’s, the practice has now developed over the last 120 years to provide farm animal livestock veterinary services from 3 distinct sites – Kelso, Galashiels and Duns - covering an area of over 6,400 square miles.
The Scottish Borders has always enjoyed a justified superb reputation for the quality of its livestock and the farms are a rich source of all that is good in Scottish Livestock Farming. Our client base is varied – from pedigree cattle and sheep farms producing breeding stock of high quality for sale throughout the UK and abroad, to many large scale commercial stock farms supplying top grade finished beef and lamb into the meat processing industry, and a dedicated core of large dairy units providing high volumes of wholesome milk into the retail sector. Pigs still feature in our caseload but numbers have dropped from a peak in the 80’s.
The traditional role of the farm animal vet – to provide individual animal care and a round the clock emergency service – is still a vitally important part of our business – but as livestock farms have increased in size and complexity, the role of the modern farm vet has also adapted to provide whole herd and flock management advice, often closely integrated with an individual health plan for that particular farm. Areas of expertise now include fertility and breeding management for beef herds, and in particular the breeding management of bulls. Similar services are available for sheep flocks, and regular fertility and health visits are commonplace on dairy farms. Some of the services currently available are:
- Herd/Flock breeding management.
- Individual bull and ram fertility screening.
- Export certification for breeding and fattening livestock.
- Herd/Flock heath planning.
- Cattle and Sheep Official Health Schemes blood testing and result analysis.
- Nutritional advice for all classes of farm systems.
- Mastitis investigations on dairy farms.
- Individual animal lameness/hoof trimming with a dedicated Wopa Bull Crate.
- TB testing and related work on behalf of the Scottish Government.
In addition to the above all the sites have fully stocked pharmacies and we supply a large range of wormers and vaccines to support our clinical services. The vets are happy to take any calls during the day to help with general advice concerning your livestock and along with you make some decisions about whether a specific case needs more practical attention.
We are concerned that over the last 5 years opportunities for livestock vets to visit farms have declined, and the loss of routine Brucellosis blood testing has re-enforced our concerns that regular farmer contact is essential for the health and wellbeing of the industry. Regular newsletters, attending beef and sheep group meetings and organising farmer meetings with support from the leading pharmaceutical companies are all valuable assets in our attempts to maintain contact with our farming clients.
Whilst all our vets will carry out veterinary work on farm certain vets have developed areas of interest and expertise relating purely to cattle and sheep – please view the individual profiles to see who is driven by what!
