Interested in getting together with like minded people? As a practice we are involved in organising Dairy, Beef and Calf discussion groups, as well as our well established flock health club. These groups get together 3 or 4 times a year in either Hampshire or West Sussex. Most meetings include a topic with a farm
Lung Ultrasound Scanning for BRD in Calves Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) continues to be one of the most costly and welfare impacting conditions in youngstock. For years, our diagnostic tools have relied heavily on clinical signs such as coughing, nasal and ocular discharge, fever, or altered breathing patterns. But research and experience on farms shows
Lung Ultrasound Scanning for BRD in Calves Read More »
We have been receiving an increasing number of calls asking what to do about Bluetongue prevention this season, so we wanted to provide an update on the current situation. The situation has changed significantly compared to this time last year. In 2025, Bluetongue was a new disease for the UK and we were largely relying
Bluetongue Prevention This Season Read More »
How we feed youngstock has huge implications on long-term performance, health, and fertility. A common mistake we see on farm is overfeeding energy, producing fat calves or lambs, rather than animals with a strong frame and good muscling. Why does frame matter?Bone and muscle growth primarily occur before puberty. Excess fat deposition at this stage
Feeding Youngstock for Fat, not Frame Read More »
In an effort to reduce calving difficulties in heifers I have been performing pelvic measurements on one of our herds for the last 4 years. This has resulted that this year 120 heifers calved with only 2 needed a gentle (manual) pull while all other heifers delivered a calf themselves unaided. For this year 150
Pelvic measuring in beef cattle Read More »
Biodiversity is a continued hot topic especially in regards to farming. Hopefully those that attended our summer barbeque at Knepp have has a chance to see some of the diversity regenerative farming is bringing back. Knepp is an example of a large-scale regenerative project which understandably wouldn’t fit most farms but there are definitely principles
With the temperatures in June many units have been seeing the impact that the heat can have on their production and that this is not limited to tropical areas. Any temperature above 25oC will need a cow to increase its heat dispersion and limit its heat production, causing an increase in maintenance energy needs by
It’s that time of year again with lots of autumn calves on the ground we have been getting busy disbudding. So far this autumn we have disbudded 541 calves with few more to come in the next few weeks; and a total of 1151 calves in 2022. As disbudding is performed for safety and handling
Knock down Disbudding Read More »
have seen a couple of cases in herds where I do the mobility scoring of presumed heat stress (and the resulting behaviour of cows) contributing to an increased prevalence of lameness cases. Essentially, 2 herds which were on top of lameness have both had a bit of a flare up in lameness cases. Both are
Heat Stress & Lameness Read More »
We’ve got a couple of new products on the shelf at the minute that some of you might be interested in. Cholivite boluses and LP200. They are for animals that are either at risk of getting, or already have energy problems. If you already use Kexxtone boluses pre-calving or Propylene Glycol post-calving then these could
Fresh Cow products Read More »
