Autumn Farm Newsletter

Welcome to the autumn edition of the Farm newsletter!

Many of you will have met or spoken to Becky who started working in the large animal office since the last newsletter was sent out. She has settled in very well and she is instrumental in helping Penny to keep the practice running smoothly, especially in the large animal division.

Sheep Flock Vaccinations

Plan your regime carefully

Abortion storms at lambing time can be devastating. Where appropriate ewes should be vaccinated against Chlamydophia abortus and Toxoplasma gondii three weeks before tupping.

Giving a booster vaccination against clostridial diseases 4– 6 weeks before lambing will protect the lambs for up to 16 weeks of age (provided the ewes have had the primary course of 2 vaccinations).

It is possible to vaccinate against pasturellosis at the same time as clostridial diseases. In an outbreak of pasturellosis over 10% of the flock can die and treatment is not easy.

Other vaccines to consider protecting your flock against include footrot, orf, louping-ill and erysipelas.

Sheep Vaccine Prices

Heptavac P - £30.88 100ml, £15.44 50ml
Borvoxin 10 Cevac Chlamydia - £54.34 20 doses, £108.60 50 doses
Toxovac £65.20 - 20 doses
Footvax £67.86 50ml

Dry cow mastitis control

Vital statistics

If Steve Brandon’s 400 cow herd at New Buildings Farm, Hopton, near Stafford was average for clinical mastitis, he and his milking team would be treating about 200 cases per year. Last year, they had only 32.

Of these, about half were in first calved heifers. Among 52 cows in their sixth or higher lactations, there were just four cases.

In a year, the average UK dairy herd gets approximately one case of clinical mastitis for every two cows. Steve Brandon’s figure is one case among every 11 cows.
Financially, the difference is worth more than £10,000/year per 100 cows.

How does he do it?

Clearly, most things are being done very well indeed: Clean cows, a well maintained milking parlour, good staff and efficient routines. In the past 12 months, production was 6,000 litres/cow at 4.57% butterfat and 3.58% protein using 535kg/cow of concentrates.

A significant change to the drying off routine was started about four years ago, in consultation with EC Straiton and Partners, when the internal teat sealant OrbeSeal was introduced for low cell count cows.

The following year, it was used in combination with antibiotic dry cow tubes for a group of August calvers. According to Mr Brandon, the main motive was “to minimise summer mastitis, but after calving we also noticed little or no clinical mastitis.”

Since then, all cows have been dried off with the ‘Clean Up Seal Up’ combination of antibiotic dry cow tubes and OrbeSeal. Despite some initial hesitation about the extra cost of double tubing, Steve Brandon says the results more than justify it. “We’ve seen reduced mastitis and less waste milk, and we’ve saved time in the parlour and reduced our drug use and costs,” he says.

Orbeseal dry cow tubes

24 tubes £59.19
120 tubes £239.20

Liver fluke

Liver fluke is caused by a parasite called Fasciola hepatica which causes disease by burrowing a path from the intestines across the abdomen and through the liver.

The disease causes major economic losses through mortality, ill-thrift, condemnation of livers at the abattoir, predisposition to other diseases, treatment and associated veterinary costs and also poses a threat to animal welfare.

The risk of liver fluke disease is closely linked to summer rainfall which favours fluke development and provides an optimum habitat for the intermediate host , the pond snail Lymnea tuncatula. Farmland that is very wet, boggy or marshy is more likely to be a suitable habitat for these snails, and therefore pose a bigger risk of fluke.

The disease has long been associated with anaemia and poor production in beef and dairy cattle, and in the past few years, fluke-related deaths have also been reported in adult cattle. The parasite has been linked with outbreaks of salmonellosis, clostridiosis and metabolic disease in dairy cattle.

NEW! Closamectin Pour-On

Treats mature and immature flukes, gastrointestinal worms, lungworms, biting and sucking lice, mange mites, and eye worms all in one pour-on!
- 1.5 litres £128.80
- 2.5 litres £ 228.85
- 5.0 litres £458.80

Nothing changes!

The following extract is from “Hodge and His Masters” written by Richard Jeffries in 1879.

Jeffries was a Wiltshire farmer’s son who worked for the local newspaper until his death caused by TB at the age of 38.

“These wet days, forcing him unwillingly to stay withindoors, send him into his books and accounts, and they tell a story somewhat at variance with the prevalent belief that dairy farming is the only branch of farming that is still profitable.

First, as to the milk selling. Cows naturally yield a larger supply in the summer than in the winter, but by the provisions of the contract between the farmer and the milkman the quantity sent in summer is not to exceed, and the quantity in the winter not fall short of, a stipulated amount. The price received in summer is about fivepence or fivepence-halfpenny per imperial gallon, afterwards retailed in London at about one shilling and eightpence.

The work is hard, or rather it is continuous. No one has to attend to his duties so regularly all the year round as the man who looks after cows. They can not be left a single day from January 1st to December the 31st. Nor is the social state of things altogether pleasant to reflect on. His sons and daughters have all left home; not one would stay and take to the dairy work. They have gone into the towns and found more congenial employment there. He is himself growing in years. His wife, having once left off making cheese when the milk selling commenced, and having tasted the sweets of rest, is unwilling to return to that hard labour.”

The language may be dated but the sentiments are all too familiar.