Trace element testing can seem like an expensive investment, but it’s an important part of getting the best performance out of a dairy herd.

Production Profile Plus (PP+) is our dairy trace element monitoring programme. It aims to simplify the monitoring process, lower the costs, and give dairy farmers the information they need to make more informed decisions around supplementation.

Through the programme, we do blood and liver tests at key times of the year to check trace element levels: pre-calving, pre-mating, and pre-drying off.

The dry season is quickly approaching! Checking the trace elements of your animals before dry-off is vital to ensure you set them up well for winter. Over the winter, they will usually be off the doseatron, while also growing a calf inside of them. These combined factors mean they’ll need to use their stored trace elements. We want them to remain at ideal levels over winter, to ensure they hit the ground running when they calve and return to the milking herd in the new season.

If you’re on our PP+ programme, we’ll come out in March/April to take blood and liver samples from a small selection of your herd. We then test these for copper, selenium and magnesium.

With these test results, your KeyVet can have a chat with you about how to target the right treatment for your animals, ensuring you only supplement what is required and get the best value for your money spent.

If you’re not on our PP+ programme yet, call us to sign up. Or, you can also book us in for one-off trace element testing ahead of dry-off.