With turnout hopefully not too far around the corner, now is the opportune time to get Lungworm control fresh in your minds to avoid losses at a later date.
Lungworm (‘husk’, ‘hoose’ and ‘parasitic bronchitis’) is caused by the parasite Dictyocaulus viviparus. Animals are infected after grazing on contaminated pasture […]
Fodder beet can be an excellent cost-effective winter feed for sheep and cattle especially if conventional forage is in short supply. It can either be grazed in situ in the field or lifted and stored in a clamp or pile before being fed to housed animals. Beet contains high levels […]
Some of you will be in the thick of lambing while others will be hitting the ground running over the coming weeks. Either way, the importance of good hygiene in the lambing shed is hugely important in order to avoid losses, reduce antibiotic use and
labour costs.
Good hygiene practices can […]
Over recent years at LLM we have seen some excellent reductions in the incidence of mastitis on farms, with many units achieving targets of <20 cases per 100 cows per year (half of the 40 cases/100 cows/year of 20 years ago!), whilst a few are managing single figure incidences. This […]
Winter dysentery is an uncommon but highly infectious viral disease in cattle which is difficult to confirm through diagnostic testing. It’s a form of bovine coronavirus, with symptoms including profuse, watery diarrhoea, dark brown in colour and sometimes containing blood. Milk yields of infected cows will show a rapid and […]
Iodine for disinfecting navels is likely to come into short supply this spring. Production issues at the factory in Chile have affected global availability, with prices quadrupling as a result. This could affect a number of areas, a crucial one being navel dipping.
High iodine concentrations (over 7%) are required […]
E.Coli septicaemia is something we usually see in calves less than seven days old. It can cause severe scour and dehydration, meningitis and often death. Luckily, for this type of E.Coli infection, we can protect the new born by vaccinating the dam during late pregnancy and feeding the calf the […]
For my DBR dissertation I set up a project on two LLM dairies investigating the prevalence of subclinical milk fever and the effects having low blood calcium at calving had on their subsequent fertility. We are all familiar with the clinical signs of milk fever (cows unable to rise, low […]
The unusual weather this year has meant we are seeing significant problems with gastrointestinal worms in sheep coming through the lab much later in the season than usual. Many farmers found they did not need to worm sheep as much as usual over the summer as the hot dry conditions […]
Ventilation improves calf health
Improving ventilation in calf housing has been key to reduce pneumonia and improve growth rates in calves. We’ve done a number of features on this in the past, but we are consistently seeing benefits on farm where ventilation has been applied to older buildings. David and […]
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