Dairy Services

The majority of our work is pre-planned, proactive healthcare in the form of routine herd health visits. Information gleaned from individual sick cow work helps to fine tune the whole herd approach along with regular monitoring of production levels, metabolic and infectious disease incidence. Our aim is to facilitate efficient production through the high standards of animal health, comfort and care.

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Nutrition

Excellent nutritional management forms the core of any good production animal system. As we are regularly on farm we are well placed to promote optimal feed management.

We work closely with farmers, nutritional advisors, feed company reps and other professionals to achieve efficient herd performance.
The management of the feeding on farm often has as much impact as the actual rationing itself. Investigating and monitoring the presentation of the diet to the cows and their access to it is important. Nutritional issues can often be solved by changing the way the diet is managed as opposed the makeup of the ration.

  • Clamp management
  • Dry Matter and pH assessment
  • Macro and micronutrient analysis
  • Mix quality
  • Trough/feed barrier management
  • Trough/feed barrier design
  • Feed area surfaces
  • Dry Matter Intakes
The other important area where we get involved with nutrition is looking at the cows to see what they are telling us about the diet. Monitoring the cow’s response to the diet regularly is important.

  • body condition scoring
  • ketone testing
  • full metabolic profiles
  • dung sieving and scoring
  • rumen fill scoring
This is especially important around the transition period. We also monitor the incidence of fresh cow diseases to tell us how well cows are transitioning.

  • Endometritis (whites)
  • Conception rates
  • Early lactation mastitis
  • Ketosis
  • Milk fever
  • LDAs

Fertility

Dairy herd fertility remains fundamental to herd profitability. Fertility can rarely be looked at in isolation, and as with all areas of herd health a holistic approach that takes into account all aspects of farm management and diseases present is required.
We provide a full range of fertility services to clients including:
  • Routine visits for fresh cow checks, non-bullers and PD’s (using portable ultrasound scanners)
  • Monitoring of fertility targets using computer software (Interherd and Interherd+, VetIMPRESS)
  • Monitoring of transition cow management – aiming to anticipate and prevent future metabolic issues leading to reduced fertility
  • Regular monitoring of bulk milk/blood samples for BVD / Lepto / IBR /Neospora / Johnes
  • Tailored vaccination programmes
  • We run a bureau Interherd service for dairy clients
  • Full embryo transfer service (flushing and implantation)
  • Repeat Breeder Embryos for problem breeders
  • Bull fertility testing (including electro-ejaculation)
Knowledge Transfer/Training Courses
  • AI training courses
  • Herdsman courses to help improve general management and stockmanship

Herd Mobility

Lameness can have a massive impact on herd profitability.We have a wealth of experience treating and preventing lameness – Including our own WOPA crush for herds where a session treating several lame cows or lesion scoring is indicated. Recently we have been having good success treating cows referred to us by foot trimmers or farmers with so called ‘non-healing’ lesions e.g. toe necrosis, infected ulcers. By giving the cows anaesthetic and aggressively trimming the lesions they can often be cured.

As with most things, prevention is better than cure. We offer lameness prevention visits based around the AHDB healthy feet programme and encourage regular mobility scoring to monitor lameness levels.

The AHDB healthy feet programme is a structured approach to improving mobility in the herd and involves:

  • Visits to mobility score the herd
  • Reviews of lameness records and cows feet
  • Assessing types of lameness to enable targeted advice
  • A full farm risk assessment for lameness
  • Leading to a control plan for lameness specific to your herd
  • Progress is monitored with further mobility scores and regular reviews of your control plan.
We stay up to date with the latest developments, regularly attending courses and conferences on lameness

Knowledge Transfer/Training Courses
  • Lameness prevention and foot trimming course
  • Herdsman courses to help improve general management and stockmanship

Mastitis

The practice has taken a leading role over the last 25 years in promoting improved udder health through the development of mastitis prevention and treatment programmes alongside the diagnostic service provided by our in house specialist milk laboratory.
Mastitis monitoring service:
We offer a service to regularly analyse and monitor mastitis KPIs.
Most of our routinely milk recorded dairy herds at the Vale make use of this service.
Full mastitis data interpretation and management involves combining clinical mastitis records, milk recording data and results from our own milk laboratory to produce regular Interherd+ reports, which can be used for:
  • Herd level
    • Monitoring herd trends and performance gives an early warning of changing mastitis patterns which ensures the preventative and management advice is relevant to the current mastitis challenges in the herd
  • Individual cow level
    • Action lists
    • Treatment protocols
Mastitis investigation advisory service:
We offer a structured approach to evaluate, diagnose and improve mastitis and cell counts at a herd level which involves:
  • An initial visit to assess the cow environment and parlour including the overall milking routine
  • Management practices, treatment and preventative protocols are assessed alongside analysis of clinical and SCC records.
  • A herd mastitis diagnosis is made culminating in an agreed prioritised achievable mastitis action plan.
  • Progress is then monitored by analysing your mastitis and SCC records and reviewing the agreed plan every 6 months.
Knowledge Transfer/Training Courses
  • Herdsman courses to help improve general management and stockmanship
  • Milking routine video analysis and parlour audits to optimise efficient, hygienic and profitable milk harvesting

Youngstock

Youngstock are the future of any livestock enterprise, whether they are the next generation of breeding animals or finished stock. Ensuring an excellent start followed by continued good growth is essential.
All our vets have experience diagnosing and treating calf problems on farm, but we also have a keen interest in maximising the profitability of your calf rearing enterprise.
Just as we offer routine health visits for the milking herd, we also offer a comprehensive youngstock scheme, which includes regular visits throughout the year and routine testing, data monitoring and analysis. One of our dedicated youngstock vets will come on farm and do a thorough assessment of all areas of calf rearing from birth (and pre-birth!) through to service and calving, and analyse health parameters and growth rates in order to give you tailored advice to improve and develop the potential of your calves.
Neonatal period and pre-weaning
  • Good biosecurity and infectious disease control to protect the foetus
  • Management of the cow in the run up to calving
  • Management of the cow and calf at calving
  • Routine colostrum management monitoring
  • Management of calves on milk
  • Diets up to weaning
  • Growth rate monitoring
Weaned calf
  • Housing design
  • Vaccination programs
  • Nutrition
  • Growth targets and monitoring
8 months to service
  • Pre service vaccination programs
  • Growth/height monitoring
  • Parasite control
  • Service planning – gene matching
Service to calving
  • Body Condition Score monitoring
  • Growth targets
  • Mineral/vitamin status
  • Transition care

Infectious Diseases

We offer a comprehensive range of services tailored to meet the needs of the individual farmer looking to safeguard their herd against disesases such as BVD, Leptospirosis, Johnes, IBR and Neospora.
We have infectious disease testing and monitoring schemes which have been running for several decades. With this wealth of experience and extensive data at our fingertips we are ideally positioned to offer high quality advice for your farm.
We have vets who are trained BCVA Johnes Veterinary Advisers and also BCVA Trained BVDfree Advisers and we are supporting and encouraging farmers to participate in both the National Action Group on Johnes and also the BVDfree England Scheme.
In many cases we can arrange for free or subsidised testing for disease surveillance purposes where we work in close partnership with many of the pharmaceutical companies who help fund and manage these schemes. We also use a variety of up to date software to record and monitor your results producing a dynamic but planned approach to managing infectious disease on your farm.
If you have any queries with regard to infectious disease surveillance or proactive health planning please contact us at the practice.

Vet Tech

We offer a Vet Tech Service to further enhance our offering to dairy farmers. Efficient and cost effective data collection allows vets to have the information they need to manage herd health, whilst the provision of skilled on farm labour helps to maximise health, welfare and productivity on farms. For more information visit out Vet Tech Servicies page.