Heifer rearing is one of the biggest expenses on a dairy farm and with increasing prices for milk replacer, feed and buildings in recent years this cost has only gone up. The return on investment doesn’t start until a heifer calves in at two years of age, and most farms will not make any profit […]
Tag Archives: Calves
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 […]
Reflection on the Year from the 0-6 Youngstock Advisory Team
It has been another busy year for the 0-6 Youngstock Advisory Team! Ellen and Martijn ran our very first ‘Youngstock Foundation course’, a day-course for those new to calf rearing or wanting a refresher. We will continue to run this course every 6 months. We hosted some well attended meetings on pre-weaning nutrition and calf […]
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 […]
Management of Calves in Hot Weather
As I write this article towards the middle of July, all we are talking about is the weather! Incredibly hot and humid spells appear to be coming more and more frequent with the changing climate. The increased temperatures bring their challenges for all sorts of reasons and one of these is the management of our […]