North – Nick Britten
As the busy period of spring calvings and lambings passes it has been good to use thetime to get to work on other issues which are easily forgotten. My recent workload has taken a turn towards lameness cases, a perennial problem in cattle. Our vet tech team do an incredible job at trimming and provide first class treatment for lame cattle but every now and then feet are thrown up that require vet attention too. A number of these cases have come to me recently from the tech team, and results have generally been very good. The kind of trim that can only be performed under local anaesthetic can resolve some of the most horrible looking long term mobility issues and get a cow back to moving well. These cases often take a long time to fully recover but the results are well worth it – if you have any chronic lame cows that just wont get right, speak with your vet about what might be done about them, it can be very rewarding!
East – Josh Swain
Calving and lambing has gone well for the majority in the East.
Continue to watch out for parasites – keep those worm egg counts coming in and ensure fly cover is in place.
We’ve had some early cases of Redwater and ticks are now active so remain vigilant. A big thank you to the Bisterne team for being fantastic hosts and welcoming us to their Gold Cup open day. It was great to see so many of you there. I hope you enjoyed my talk!
West – Ben Barber
At the time of writing this, Imo and myself have been back at Synergy for almost three months, and it feels like we never left! We’ve been greeted by the same friendly faces both within the practice and out on farm.
Coming back from abroad you also truly appreciate the variation our UK jobs provide. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been involved in creating new teaching material for the final year Royal Veterinary Collage students we support; worked with spring block calving dairy units as they go about their next round of mating; visited calf rearing units in North Wales; and reviewed large set of health data to gain insight into how we could improve the beef units we support.
It’s this work, looking at how antibody levels from colostrum affect performance during beef calf rearing, which has led to an invite to speak at an international cattle conference in Mexico next week – something I’m both excited and nervous about. As I said before, this job certainly provides
Central – Pete Siviter
After a seriously challenging 18 months, spring weather has finally arrived! At the time of writing the weather is only just starting to warm up, but the ground has at least dried out – here’s keeping our fingers crossed for a manageable summer. With the butterflies and bumblebees starting to wake up I’m thinking about insects ahead of the summer – make sure you get your fly control on early, or talk to us about use of parasitic wasps. Also keep your eye out for those friendly dung beetles on the pasture – they prevent run-off, improve soil fertility and reduce nuisance flies – we’ll be running some on-farm beetle sessions over the summer months to discuss sustainable parasite control to reduce costs and environmental impacts – hope to see you there!
Lympstone – Beth Tamblyn
At the time of writing we have been with Synergy for just over 3 months. We have now had all our meet and greets which were a huge success. It was great to catch up with clients outside of farm emergencies and routines.
We have continued to be called to calvings (including a set of triplets!), lambings and quite a few prolapses. Our vets Lorna and Johanna had 4 prolapses between them over the Easter Weekend!
There are several risks factors for prolapses in both cattle and sheep, including over conditioned animals, high rumen fill and low calcium levels. As much as replacing cattle prolapses is a good workout, we would always rather prevent them! Please chat to us if you have had high numbers of prolapses this year so we can develop a plan to reduce them in future years.
