I’ve received a text from DEFRA telling me that Bluetongue Virus is in the UK. What is Bluetongue virus and why do we need to know about it? Bluetongue Virus (BTV) is a virus which affects cattle, sheep, other ruminants such as goats and deer, and camelids (such as alpaca and llamas). It causes […]
Tag Archives: Beef
Vets Guide to Liver Fluke
Now’s the time to monitor the impact of liver fluke in your herd Liver fluke (fasciolosis) is a parasitic disease that affects grazing animals, particularly those grazed on wet and muddy pastures near rivers or ponds. The life cycle requires mud snails as an intermediate host, and warm summers with heavy rainfall, such as this […]
October – News From Our Rounds
NORTH – James Aitken It is now three months since the clients of Orchard Vets in Glastonbury moved over to Synergy, and likewise three months since I joined the Synergy team. As a traditional mixed practice Orchard had been finding it increasingly difficult to provide a gold standard service to the vastly different clients and […]
Cattle exposed to Heat-stress in September
On my regular routine fertility visits lately I have noticed fewer pregnancies than I would normally expect. Additionally, I have scanned at least six cows that are either losing embryos or look like they will lose embryos. It has made me reflect on what has been going on in recent weeks. An obvious event was […]
Spring Calving and Lambing Reflection
As I write this, we are in the midst of a busy few weeks of Spring lambing and calving. It’s been great to get on farm and see some immaculate calving pens, highly organised lambing sheds and keenly motivated teams. Hopefully things have mostly gone well, but there have been some challenges and difficulties and […]
Reduce stress when TB Testing
Six month testing is in full swing and each test seems to come around so quickly. TB testing can be stressful for both the cattle, and everyone involved. You don’t have to have new high tech handling systems for the test to run smoothly and safely. I have not yet seen a perfect handling system […]
Bovine TB – roll out of the PCR test (yes the same style test used to test humans for Covid!)
We have had long-awaited news from APHA that they will begin their rollout of using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test, in place of standard culture when confirming a TB diagnosis from lesions at slaughter. This should be a step forward in reducing the time taken for a decision to be made on any further […]
The Medicine Hub is here – an update for beef and sheep farms
UK farming has been a world leader in reducing antibiotic use – yet we have struggled to prove this progress in our ruminant sectors. Now we have the Medicine Hub for beef, sheep and dairy. While we know from our own records at Synergy that our beef cattle and sheep clients are generally low users […]
Suckler Calf Mortality – time to investigate?
A study looking in to the risk factors associated with beef calf mortality found the following:- Dystocia (difficult birth), small birth weight and older parity of the mother increased the risk of mortality in calves <1 month old. In calves 1 – 5 months old, being the offspring of a heifer was associated with significantly […]
Control of Johne’s Disease in the Beef Suckler Herd
Johne’s disease, caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium avium sub-species paratuberculosis, or MAP for short, is characterised by a long incubation period before irreversible diarrhoea and terminal weight loss. Infection can occur at any age but is most common via the faeco-oral route within the first hours, days or weeks of life, although clinical signs are […]
