North-Emily Cruse
At last some improvement in the weather – many of our North region clients can be found in the fields in between our visits. We are now seeing a definite drop in the number of obstetric visits which hopefully means that most of you who are spring calvers have finished calving for this year! If your calving block is creeping into the summer months and is too elongated please get in touch to see how we can help tighten it up. Finally, it is coming up to a year since I started here at Synergy and I would like to take the opportunity to say a huge thank you to everyone for making me feel so welcome!
East-Mike Kerby
After a three month unscheduled medical sabbatical, I have returned back into the fray and would like to extend my heartfelt thanks for all the kind messages I received as well as acknowledging the continuing superb service that was provided by my colleagues in the East team to you all. What I came to realise over the last 3 months was how much I still enjoy interacting with animals in my 44th year in the veterinary sphere and just how amazing cows are in particular at coping with abdominal surgery, often walking to the milking parlour and eating heartily within hours of one of us goggling about with their gastro-intestinal tract or uterus! Just because cattle have a seemingly high pain threshold it should NOT mean we underestimate the usefulness of providing pain relief to them no matter what their ailment. Here’s to a warm and sensibly dry Summer!
West-Tom Cook
I write on the longest day of the year, grass is green, birds are singing. I feel lucky to live in this part of the world. We have been completing a steady stream of Animal Health and Welfare visits under SFI funding, with a relatively low bar of evidence required, there is flexibility for vet and farmer to choose how to spend the money available. Get your application in or ask one of the team how to claim. I have recently been to the British Mastitis Conference and continue my interest in all things udder health. As the son of a dairy farmer I have been learning lots that I didn’t know about milking machine function and the cooperation required between human, machine and cow. A consistent theme of recent mastitis work has been the grazing environment. Grazing should ideally be accessed by cows for a maximum of 2 weeks, followed by 4 weeks rest to reduce build up of mastitis bugs. I have had these discussions with a number of herds under different systems using grazing as loafing, night paddocks or dry cow paddocks.
Central-Ellen Taylor
It’s been a busy spring with plenty of challenges from the long period of wet weather, to cases of Schmallenberg, and difficulties turning cattle out and rearing lambs. As we look forward into summer it will be important to keep a close eye on parasite burdens in our stock. A warm and wet spring may lead to high worm burdens on pasture. It will be important this year to monitor closely, through use of regular weighing to determine growth rates and monitoring faecal egg counts in both sheep and cattle. First season grazing animals will be most at risk and by the time we see signs such as scour and poor condition, growth potential and therefore returns will be lost. So keep monitoring!! Speak to your vet about options for monitoring and consider speaking to one of our RAMAs for worming advice if needed.
Lympstone-Alice Coppin-Harris
After a wonderful four years at Lympstone, it’s time for me to swap my waterproofs for my passport and a new adventure. I have loved working with such a great team of colleagues and clients over the years and I will certainly miss everyone and all the farmyard antics! I started seeing practice at Lympstone before vet school so it’s been quite a journey from student, to new-grad, to lead vet on farm and more recently, the exciting move to Synergy. Thank you for being such brilliant clients to work with and learn from, I wish you all the best for the season ahead! Now it’s time for some new travels and adventures, where I will hopefully need fewer woolly hats and a bit more suncream!
