Dairy news and advice from the LLM Farm Vets team in Shropshire, Cheshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire.
Recently, having spent a few days helping out with the national disease surveillance and control efforts in East Yorkshire I gained a greater appreciation of the level of surveillance and monitoring of exotic and notifiable animal diseases that goes on behind the scenes in the UK. Whilst infectious diseases are […]
Calving is associated with profound metabolic changes which often lead to a combination of fatty liver, poor energy status, low blood calcium, reduced feed intakes and oxidative stress. These conditions adversely affect milk yield, cow health and increase the chances of premature culling.
Blood testing cows after calving for calcium […]
The results from the 2024 National BVD Survey make interesting reading (if you’re into that kind of thing…). Compiled from responses from 673 farmers, 58% of whom are in England, with 14% each from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, here Rob discusses the key points.
Bluetongue (BTV) is a viral disease transmitted by biting midges, which affects all ruminants (e.g. sheep, cattle, goats and deer) and camelids (e.g. llama and alpaca). BTV is mainly spread by infected adult midges biting an animal susceptible to the disease.
An uninfected adult midge bites an infected ruminant animal […]
Back in the Spring I was lucky enough to join Semex and a group of farmers on a trip to Canada and New York state to see how they farm and bring back some ideas.
After a stop off to see Niagara Falls we crossed the border into New York […]
As we enter harvest supper season and back to school routines, keeping cows out for as long as possible becomes increasingly appealing. Grazing in the autumn can be an efficient way to maximise milk from forage but is not without its challenges.
Planning your autumn pasture rotation and adopting on/off […]
Hopefully your suckler calves are growing well and thoughts are turning to weaning over the next few months. Body condition scoring cows is a helpful way to inform your plans. Ideally spring calvers should score 2.5 at calving and 3 by housing. Autumn calvers should score 3 at calving but […]
Chantal, Derbyshire’s answer to Olivia Newton-John, shares her thoughts on the passing of the seasons. Tell me more, tell me more!
We are well into summer and hopefully it has continued with the warm weather. As I write this the sun is shining and many of you are out in […]
After a slow start to the grazing season and with autumn calving herds drying cows off, many of you will be making the most of the ‘summer’ weather and grazing dry cows, either as far offs or right up until the point of calving.
Dry cows can be managed successfully […]
Over the last two years I have had the opportunity to accompany an experienced Dutch vet called Joost De Veer on several Cow Compass farm assessments to UK dairy farms. Although comprising some data capture, some animal scoring and a farm assessment visit, these are rather different to either Red […]
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