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Drying off with VetSouth? Easy.

With winter just around the corner and the season winding down, we have some useful tips for a smooth dry off if you have a VetSouth team coming to dry off your herd. The end of the road is near and we can all see the light at the end of the tunnel. We just have one more tiny, but kind of big hill to climb — drying off! If it’s your first time having the VetSouth team come in to dry off your herd (or if you just need a reminder), here is what you can do to make sure that the job is effic...

Intensive winter grazing

Nobody needs to be told that Intensive Winter Grazing (IWG) has been in the headlights for the past couple of years. 2019 gave us the Task Force, which then led to the 2020 Action Group, which itself was then disrupted by Covid. This group have now identified 7 ‘Short Term Outcomes for Animal Welfare’ which can be found on MPI's website. In between, of course, we have also had the government’s Essential Freshwater programme and ES’s interpretation of this; and also the establishment of t...

Lame cows

Lameness is one of the major animal health issues on dairy farms in New Zealand. There are large losses in productivity due to lameness. Researchers have placed the cost anywhere between $200 and $450/case depending on the disease, time taken to treatment, time of lactation and milk pay-out. Simply speaking, lame cows eat less, and therefore produce less and have a poorer reproductive performance compared to cows who do not get lame. Then there are the cows that need euthanasia as they cannot fu...

Remote Digital Autopsy (RDA)

A handy service for farmers needing a quick answer and find out "what went wrong". As well as traditional autopsies, VetSouth also offers Remote Digital Autopsies (RDA) as an alternative. This is a result of a study we conducted 2 years ago. The study was to determine whether we could adopt the Canadian system of Remote Digital Autopsy (RDA) here in NZ. This service is convenient for farmers who are looking to find a quick answer to why things went wrong for their animal(s), and some solid solut...

Tech Talk: Teat sealing

With our veterinary technician teams kicking into gear for winter, we find out what they are up to in preparation for teat sealing season. Every year, our teat sealing operations grow as our clients continue to choose us to seal their heifers. Heifer teat sealing is key to give heifers the best possible start to their milking life. Research has shown that by not teat sealing your heifers, there is a significant increase in the risk of clinical mastitis post-calving. Heifer teat sealing is probab...

Understanding Dry Cow Reduction

Breaking down the jargon so we can easily reduce antibiotic usage on farm. A short history of abbreviations AMU = antimicrobial use (‘antibiotics’)DCAT = dry cow antimicrobial therapy (‘dry cow’)ITS = internal teat sealants (‘teat seal’) Vets love to abbreviate things. I think it makes us feel important — BVD, PD, KVC. But, to be fair, the dairy industry does exactly the same and probably worse — SCC, FEP, BW, PW…. So the combination is deadly, and over the past fe...

What needs to be done before dry off?

With the end of the season coming, we catch up with vet Joel to work out what you need to have dialled in before you can hang up the milking apron....

How are the youngstock weighing up?

Britt, our Weigh It Up lead shares what she has been seeing on farms lately, and shares the benefit of regular weighing. Calves are the future of every herd, achieving liveweight gains and maintaining monthly targets are essential. Focusing on this stage can help your animals become good milk producers and maximise lifetime productivity when they finally enter the milking shed. This is where Weigh It Up comes in; weighing monthly with Weigh It Up gives farmers the benefit of gathering all the in...

Salmonella season

With the start of Autumn, comes the start of another season for the risk of salmonellosis in cattle and your staff. Last year we saw several large outbreaks across Southland and the West Coast of Salmonella Typhimurium in dairy cows ranging from early January to late April. The outbreaks were estimated to cost between $15k - $130k in the form of cows that died, cows that were sick and required treatment, as well as loss of milk production. In addition, we have seen a few cases of abortion in fir...

Benefits of beef cattle pregnancy testing

Aged scanning in beef cattle allows you to better understand the needs of your herd. There are many advantages to age pregnancy testing your beef herd that can provide you with more information than standard wet/dry testing. Fetal aging is essential for understanding your herd’s reproduction performance and to make the right changes to improve results. ...

Getting optimum protection

Are your lambs fully, partially or not protected against clostridial disease? Every year we hear of lamb losses due to pulpy kidney. Some farmers have one, while others see a few each week - and it is always in their big lambs ready for the works! Such a shame to get them to this stage and for them to die in the paddock. Many lambs are vaccinated these days at tailing. This vaccine is the sensitiser and gets the body ready for an upcoming infection. But if that infection does not come and there ...

How to body condition score sheep

Why is it important? Body Condition Scoring (BCS) is a quick and easy management tool to increase productivity on your farm. Body Condition Scoring assesses the body fat of each animal, allowing you to compare ewes in your flock without worrying about breed, frame, gut fill and pregnancy. This means improved animal welfare and performance, increased conception rate, increased lamb weights, and more efficient use of feed. How to Condition Score To body condition score your flock, they should be p...

Itchy dog?

Notice your working dog itching and scratching more than normal? Fleas, allergies and infections are the most common causes. Itching is a really common problem among farm dogs. Itchy dogs can present in a number of ways including scratching, biting or licking at one or multiple areas of the body. The 3 most common causes of itching are parasites, allergies and infections....

Take action on flystrike

Vet Emily discusses how to be proactive on combating flystrike in the South. Flystrike is the most important external parasite of sheep in New Zealand, and yes, it's definitely in Southland. There are three species of blowfly that can initiate flystrike in sheep and two species that are secondary invaders. When and how does this happen? The main flystrike challenge period is November through to March. Adult flies and larvae, which have overwintered, become active and start to hatch once the soil...

Tech Talk: Remote Digital Autopsy (RDA)

Laura Dalzell is one of our lead RDA vet technicians, and we recently caught up with her to find out a little more about the RDA service. As well as traditional investigative autopsies, VetSouth also offers Remote Digital Autopsies (RDA) as an alternative. This service is handy to farmers who are looking to find out a quick answer to why things went wrong for their animal(s), and some solid solutions to take preventative action in the future. So Laura, what is an RDA? Similar to a traditional au...

When to Faecal Egg Count (FEC)?

A FEC (Faecal Egg Count) is a quick, relatively cheap, in-house test you can invest in for peace of mind, to ensure that you still have drenches that you can reliably reach for in the shed that work. With the temperatures rising, we get ideal conditions for parasites. This can be the perfect opportunity to do a drench check if you’re wanting a quick snapshot of whether your usual go-to drench is working or not with a simple in-house faecal egg count (FEC)....

Why use a Knockout drench?

By introducing a Knockout drench into your drenching schedule, you can combat drench resistant worms that have multiplied over the warmer months.Like most things in life, farming seems to be getting more complex rather than simple. You could say the same when it comes to drenching your lambs. As our knowledge of drench resistance continues to expand, as do the recommendations for using drenches in the best possible way. One way we can help reduce the build-up of resistant parasites is through th...

Balancing trace elements

Young stock or adults, trace elements are a big driver of health and performance in dairy systems. Although most farms appear to have a basic trace element plan for their stock, too often we will be asked to help in situations. These situations can be downer cows, sudden death, poor youngstock growth or health, poor mating results, or even bone fractures are occurring and where poor trace element levels (either too little or too much) can be the causative factor. There are now many methods by wh...

Drenching calves

Internal parasites (also known as worms) live in the gut and in high numbers can cause significant disease and subsequent production losses, especially in young stock. Animals get worms from eating larvae on pasture which develop into adult worms in the gut. These worms then shed eggs in the animal’s faeces, hatch into larvae and so the cycle continues increasing their numbers. As the weather warms up the larval challenge on the pasture increases, simultaneously the calves are being weaned and...

Healthy Hooves

Lameness is a major economic and welfare concern around the world, and NZ based systems are no exception. Whilst kiwi cows don’t spend the majority of their days standing on concrete, they can have big distances to walk and their feet still go through the same stressors during a normal milking. With the Healthy Hoof programme, we focus on the prevention of lameness with information and training on management and treatment. This will minimise the impacts of lameness on your cows, your staff and...

Is failure of passive transfer affecting your heifers?

Failure of Passive Transfer (FPT) occurs when calves fail to absorb sufficient quantities of immunoglobulin from colostrum in the first 24 hours of life.A recent New Zealand study indicates that, on average, about a third of calves (i.e. 33%) have FPT, but this prevalence varies widely between farms from 5% up to 80% of calves.Calves with FPT are immune compromised and, therefore, at a greater risk of disease and mortality. This effect is still evident at 12 months of age.Strategies to improve q...

Prep for pregnancy scanning

Large Animal Vet Claire shares her top tips for an easy scan. There’s a lot going on when heifers and cows are getting scanned. Numbers are getting thrown around all over the show: tag numbers, mating dates, days pregnant, the time the alarm went off to get on farm and so on. Here’s a list of things worth quickly thinking about before it’s your turn to scan. Anything that can help the scanning job go as smoothly as possible on the day, will help reduce the risk of scanning or recording err...

Scanning with Sunni

We talk all things scanning with large animal vet, Sunita McGrath. With our dairy and beef scanning seasons coming up, the team is busy training and getting fit to ensure they can continue to deliver the best scanning service. We caught up with largies vet Sunita, to find out why scanning is her favourite time of the year. Why do you love scanning so much, Sunni? "We work closely with the farmers to get to this point, it's like exam day and everyone gets a bit nervous! It is a great feeling to s...

Weigh It Up

An exciting new partnership with VetSouth and Weigh It Up.For a number of years now, Grant Heatherington has been servicing the deep south with his stock weighing service, Weigh It Up. Grant is based in Winton and we've worked alongside him over the years through his various roles, including with his Weigh It Up business. So we're stoked to announce that when Grant looked to his next venture in oyster shells, he first looked to us to help support him.So over the past months one of our experience...

Better genes through stud selection

When it comes to genes and stud selection, what is your top priority? If you can answer this you can work towards achieving it. This is especially true when you look at the performance of your stock. By identifying the things you want to work on, you will be able to purchase the genetics that will drive the improvement you are looking for. It’s not a one size fits all process - your focus will be different from other farmers. Which of these factors do you want? Bigger stockSmaller stock Better...