PARAGON VETERINARY GROUP ACHIEVING EXCELLENCE IN HEALTH AND PRODUCTVITY ISSUE 55
LIVESTOCK
NEWS FEBRUARY 2016 Staff News Bovine Endoscopy Preparation for Lambing Controlling the “Spring Rise” Lungworm Selective Dry Cow
PARAGON VETERINARY GROUP Visit us at: www.paragonvet.com
LIVESTOCK NEWS FEBRUARY 2016
Staff News Emily Magnay We are very pleased to welcome Emily Magnay to the farm animal team. Emily started with us at the end of October and has taken on the role of Farm Animal Administrator and is working primarily from the Dalston branch. Emily has previously worked for an accountancy firm preparing farm accounts as well as in a finance company. She lives locally on her parents smallholding after they moved from their dairy farm 10 years ago and enjoys helping her partner on his beef/sheep farm.
Dan Griffiths We are delighted to welcome Dan Griffiths to the farm vet team. Dan started with us at the beginning of January. Dan may be well known to many of you as he was Vet Advisor with Zoetis (Pfizer) before joining us. Dan will be working from both the Dalston and Newbiggin branches and will be working on farm as well as in a farm business development role. Dan qualified from The Royal Veterinary College in 2005 and holds a post graduate certificate in Dairy Herd Health and is an RCVS Advanced Practitioner in Cattle Health and Production. His areas of interest include herd health, calf rearing, infectious disease control and genomics.
Philip Wilkinson We are very happy to welcome Philip Wilkinson back to the Paragon farm vet team. Philip rejoined the Paragon team in January after an 18 month sabbatical in New Zealand where he has worked in the South Island in dairy practice and was involved with large scale dairy herds there. He will be working from the Dalston branch. Prior to his trip Philip worked for us for 3 years after qualifying from Nottingham in 2011.
Miriam Hedley We were sad to say goodbye to Miriam Hedley at the beginning of January. Miriam has moved back to her native North East to be closer to friends and family and we wish her the very best in her new veterinary job over there and thank her for her hard work and great sense of humour whilst at Paragon.
LIVESTOCK NEWS FEBRUARY 2016
Bovine Endoscopy By Barry Cooper Endoscopy/ keyhole surgery is seen as a less intrusive way to perform a variety of procedures within human medicine so why not use it to treat your animals? Correction of the left displaced abomasum (LDA) is the most common procedure associated with laparoscopic surgery however techniques and procedures are evolving all the time within the veterinary profession with RDA corrections and exploratory endoscopy becoming more common. Endoscopy can be used to aid our diagnosis and subsequently allow a more reliable prognosis to be given. With only one or two small holes a large amount of additional information is readily available to us. This allows us to form a more definitive diagnosis and perhaps more importantly decide what, if any, treatment is likely to succeed. Although we never like to be defeated, clients appreciate knowing when spending money on treatment is not worthwhile. I have now moved towards routinely correcting LDA’s laparoscopically and am pleased to say it has been going exceptionally well with the feedback from farmers being very positive. Some of the advantages include:
NO WITHDRAWALS so milk back in the tank that evening.
No longer or more costly than standard surgery.
The patient is not subject to the complications of open surgery whilst offering good visualisation of the target area.
Less invasive, no scar, just a few staples and two blue patches. Studies carried out by a fellow XL practice showed that LDA’s corrected using the endoscopic technique gave 5.1 litres more per day (for up to 120 days post calving) than their rolled and toggled counterparts.
LIVESTOCK NEWS FEBRUARY 2016
Preparation for Lambing By Caroline Abbott With lambing fast approaching, or in many cases, already upon us, we all know how important preparation is for this busy time of year. Correct ewe nutrition is considered one of the single most influential factors relating to peripaturient loss – in terms of both lambs and adult sheep. Good feeding is essential, particularly in late pregnancy as lambs double in size in the last month and udder development occurs in the last fortnight. Ewes should be fed according to their condition score, litter size, forage quality and weather. It is important to bear in mind that a ewe can only consume 2-2.5% of her body weight in dry matter (DM), therefore all of the requirements for this intense period must be contained in this volume (for an 80kg ewe this equates to 1.6 to 2.0kg DM). The twin-bearing (or more) ewe is under greater nutritional stress during the last six weeks of pregnancy and is therefore predisposed to conditions such as twin lamb disease and hypoglycaemia, as well as conditions of the lambs such as hypothermia, lamb dysentery and watery mouth/rattle belly. Even conditions occurring later in the lamb’s life such as joint ill (navel ill) or some of the clostridial diseases can be attributed to poor colostrum quality as a result of poor nutrition. Twin lamb disease (or hypoglycaemia) should be considered not as an individual condition, but as a warning that the flock is under a level of nutritional stress. Pop into the Dalston reception area to see our ‘Planning for Lambing’ display. We have forward purchased many of the key lambing products to ensure the best price available, please contact the surgery for further info on lambing offers. Abortions Isolate any aborting ewes and disinfect the area. If >2% abort, investigation is indicated: don’t forget to mark up any barren/aborted ewes. Subsidised testing is available: 1. Barren EweCheck (Toxoplasmosis Blood Testing Scheme)- Available from 1st December 2015 until 31st March 2016, 6-8 barren/aborted ewes 2. FlockCheck (EAE & Toxoplasmosis Blood Testing Scheme)- TBC but most likely available from 1st March until 31st July, 6-8 barren/aborted ewes
LIVESTOCK NEWS FEBRUARY 2016 Stomach tubes
Lambing Checklist Arm length disposal gloves Lubricant A head rope or lambing snare
Energy supplement like propylene glycol to treat twin lamb disease Syringes and needles
Disinfectant solution
Antibiotic injections for treating mastitis and metritis
Calcium injection
Bottle and teats
Anti-inflammatory injection for use after lambing
Respiratory stimulant
Prolapse retainers Strong iodine (10% tincture of iodine) for dipping navels Colostrum (ideally frozen sheep colostrum, if not powdered colostrum substitute)
A warming box Glucose for intraperitoneal injection of hypothermic lambs Oral antibiotics for watery mouth treatment Elastrator/ rubber rings
Oxytocin
Marker sprays
Thermometer
Notebook
Heptavac P Plus The vaccine may be used in pregnant ewes as an aid in the control of lamb dysentery, pulpy kidney, tetanus and pasteurellosis in their lambs provided that the lambs receive sufficient immune colostrum during the first 1-2 days of life. To vaccinate sheep as an aid in the control of Lamb Dysentery, Pulpy Kidney, Struck, Tetanus, Braxy, Blackleg, Black Disease, Clostridial metritis caused by Clostridium perfringens. The vaccine may be used to aid the control of pneumonic pasteurellosis in sheep of all ages from a minimum age of 3 weeks and in the control of pasteurellosis in weaned fattening and breeding sheep. The vaccine should be administered by subcutaneous injection in the lateral side of the upper neck observing aseptic precautions. All breeding sheep not previously vaccinated with Heptavac P Plus must receive two injections, each of 2.0 ml, separated by an interval of 4-6 weeks. Thereafter they must receive booster injections at intervals of not more than 12 months. In adult breeding ewes these yearly booster injections should be given during the pre -lambing period, 4-6 weeks pre-lambing, as an aid in control of disease in their lambs. On farms where the incidence of pasteurellosis is high, a supplementary booster injection using a Pasteurella vaccine may be required 2-3 weeks prior to expected seasonal outbreaks. Heptavac P Plus should not be used in lambs less than 3 weeks of age.
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LIVESTOCK NEWS FEBRUARY 2016
Controlling the “Spring Rise” By Dan Griffiths In the last 2 weeks of pregnancy and for several weeks after lambing the immunity of ewes drop. This reduced immune function allows a subclinical worm burden to produce eggs which are then shed by the ewe. This is known as the “Spring Rise”. These eggs contaminate the pasture and can then be picked up by lambs causing reduction in growth rates, scour and even death. Control of the Spring Rise is therefore recommended and ewes should be dosed with a wormer around lambing time.
By controlling egg output in the ewes
You will reduce pasture contamination & lamb exposure
When choosing suitable wormer to treat the ewes it is worth remembering: The wormer needs to be effective – evidence of white drench resistance is present on most sheep flocks in the UK. For Levamisole the picture is slightly better but resistance is still commonly found. The other major class is the Macrocyclic Lactones which contain the Ivermectins and Moxidectin (Cydectin) – here there is sporadic but increasing levels of resistance. The take home message is it is worth all sheep farmers checking the levels of resistance on their farms. A good place to start is to administer your normal treatment and then to take a post treatment egg count 7-14 days later (timings are specific depending on the product used so it is best to speak to one of the vets first). A long acting wormer not only treats any current worm burden but will give persistent activity allowing treated ewes to act as hoovers cleaning up the pasture and reducing worm egg exposure to lambs. The length of persistent cover varies by product but Cydectin 2% is the longest lasting providing “Season Long” cover. Turning treated ewes out onto clean pasture should be avoided at all costs. Clean pasture is commonly referred to as any pasture which has not had sheep grazing on it for more than 12 months.
LIVESTOCK NEWS FEBRUARY 2016
Injection of Cydectin 2% is under the skin at the base of the
Cydectin 2% treated Ewes help to hoover the pasture clean
To slow the development of resistance on any farm a proportion of ewes should be left untreated. Commonly quoted suggestions are to leave 10-20% of ewes untreated or not to treat all fit healthy single bearing ewes. These are sensible precautions for all sheep flocks.
Calf Jackets and Calf Tracker We now stock the Cosy Calf calf jackets and have seen sales of these dramatically increase over the last 6 months. The benefits of calf jackets are huge as they help calves concentrate their energy on growing rather than keeping warm! This has further benefits of helping reduce disease incidence and maximising calf performance.
We are currently running the Calf Tracker campaign in conjunction with XLVets and monitoring growth rates is a key part of this alongside disease monitoring and tailored calf health advice. If you are interested in being part of this programme to improve your calf performance or equally just find out how good you actually are then please contact one of the farm vets who will be more than happy to get you involved.
Prompt payment discount
LIVESTOCK NEWS FEBRUARY 2016
Lungworm – an increasing problem? By Bruce Richards Lungworm is becoming more frequent once again. Historically, lungworm problems have been most commonly associated with youngstock, but a greater proportion of cases are now being reported in adult animals. This alarming escalation in disease outbreaks is apparently due to a combination of reduced exposure with set stocked youngstock pastures, the use of long-acting wormers in calves, reduction in vaccine use and changes in weather patterns. A recently published study looking at the costs of severe lungworm infection in two Dutch dairy herds showed that both farms lost over £130 per cow to their disease outbreaks. On both units over 80% of these costs were down to lost production – through a combination of depressed milk yield and cattle deaths. UK evidence suggests a cost of £1.50 £3 per head per day in lost production and up to 20 days to recover. Planning lungworm control strategies prior to an animals first grazing season makes sound financial sense and relying on wormers alone often doesn’t allow the animal to develop its own natural immunity. Husk infestation occurs as a result of infection with the worm Dictyocaulus viviparus. Cattle develop it after eating grass contaminated with infective larvae. Once in the gut, the larvae migrate through its wall to the lungs where they begin laying eggs after several weeks. A spell of mild, wet weather can create a sudden, dramatic increase in lungworm populations, which can be very harmful, even fatal, to any stock that have little or no immunity. Even low-medium infestations will have an effect on health and production. Bovilis Huskvac is a live vaccine, made from irradiated larvae, which are not capable of causing disease requiring 2 doses orally 4 weeks apart. For dairy calves, vaccination should be completed at least two weeks before the calves are turned out to grass, for suckled calves it should finish two weeks before the calves begin to eat significant amounts of grass. Wormers such as sustained-release boluses should not be given until two weeks after the final dose of vaccine. The vaccine produces a very good immune response against disease but it does not prevent all worms from natural infections completing their life cycle. Importantly this allows for the continued development of natural immunity, which often fails to occur where there is an over-reliance on wormers. Vaccination pre-turnout with Bovilis Huskvac is a reliable and cost-effective way of ensuring the development of immunity to lungworm. Please contact the practice to plan your lungworm control strategies for this season and to order Bovilis Huskvac.
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LIVESTOCK NEWS FEBRUARY 2016
Selective Dry cow treatment: What is it all about? By Diether Prins Virtually all dairy cows will undergo a dry cow period to prepare the udder for the next lactation. As approximately 25% of all quarters have an intramammary infection (IMI) present (quarter level) and approximately 55% of all cows have an IMI present in at least one quarter (cow level), it makes sense to treat these quarters and cows with antibiotic containing dry cow treatments (DCT), up to a level that all quarters of all cows might receive an antibiotic containing DCT, the “blanket dry cow therapy”. With blanket DCT some quarters (approx. 25%) will receive a curative treatment (the quarters with IMI) while approx. 75% of the quarters will receive the treatment as a prevention/prophylaxis. On a scientific, government, public opinion and economic level, this blanket DCT is frowned upon and a shift away from blanket treatment is currently a “hot topic” and “selective DCT” will be pushed to be implemented very soon. On the continent “selective DCT” has been successfully implemented in various countries. The DCT regulations have become very strict there; drug labels of antibiotic products can not contain the words “prevention” or “prophylaxis” anymore, only designated veterinary surgeons can prescribe and/or administer certain (other than 1 st line DCT) DCT’s and if no information about the individual animal exists (milk records) to justify antibiotic DCT no antibiotic containing treatment is allowed. So what can be done on your farm to consider implementing selective DCT in the future? On a herd level: 1) If no milk recording is currently being undertaken, a good starting point would be to think about milk recording. Selective DCT can only be implemented with good results if individual cell count records are available. This decision could coincide with teat end scoring as this could greatly help implementing a selective DCT regime. 2) Evaluate herd cell count; is the herd cell count under 200,000 cells/ml? If not, steps should be taken to reduce this; continue with blanket DCT until the herd cell count falls under 200,000 3) Evaluate individual cell counts; do less than 25% of cows have a cell count <200,000? If more than 25% of cows have cell counts over 200,000 then this suggests widespread IMI within the herd, steps should be taken to improve this 4) Evaluate presence of certain mastitis causing bacteria. If present, continue appropriate DCT until the problem is under control Prompt payment discount
LIVESTOCK NEWS FEBRUARY 2016 Once these criteria are fulfilled on a farm level, selective DCT can be considered on an individual cow level as long as certain criteria are met: 1) Low risk cows - no mastitis current lactation - no missed milk recordings - no milk recordings with cell count >150,000 - last milk recording within 6 weeks of drying off < 50,000 for cows and < 150,000 for heifers 2) Medium risk cows - No mastitis within 3 months before drying off and max. of 1 case of mastitis in current lactation - No missed milk recordings - No milk recordings with cell count > 150,000 in last 3 months - Last milk recording within 6 weeks of drying off < 50,000 for cows and < 150,000 for heifers 3) High risk cows - All animals not fulfilling the above requirements The reasoning for the difference between 50,000 cells/ml for cows and 150,000 cells/ml for heifers is, that between last milk recording and drying off 6 weeks later, cell counts of cows (not so much heifers) could potentially rise by 150.000 cells/ml potentially reaching 200,000 cells/ml at dry off which could indicate presence of IMI. Of course, all the above are general recommendations and specific recommendations and guidelines should be drawn up by your veterinary advisor as to what products to use to successfully implement a selective DCT regime.
AI Course Westmorland Vets at Kendal are running an AI course from March 15th â&#x20AC;&#x201C; March 18th. 10-3pm ÂŁ480 + VAT Places are still available. Please contact 01539 722692 if you would like to book a place. Prompt payment discount
LIVESTOCK NEWS FEBRUARY 2016
Treatment & Control of Fluke By Cheryl Watson After the wet Summer and Winter of 2015 we continue to see fluke a problem in our stock and as cattle and sheep prices are poor we must treat our animals efficiently and effectively as we can! It is important to use the appropriate drug for each situation and to base treatments on fluke forecasts.(see www.nadis.org.uk for regional forecasts). Most flukicidal drugs on the market are effective in treating adult fluke, but few are effective in treating immature fluke that migrate through the liver. Triclabendazole (TCBZ) is generally the drug of choice but as resistance to flukicides can occur with repeated and frequent use, alternatives should be used wherever possible, particularly in late winter. The table below shows flukicide effectiveness at the different fluke life stages. Flukicide Albendazole (Endospec SC)
1
2
3
4
5
Age of Fluke (weeks) 6 7 8 9
10
50-70%
Oxyclozanide (Zanil)
11
12
13
14
80-99%
Nitroxynil (Trodax) Closantel (Flukiver) Triclabendazole (Endofluke)
50-90% 90-99%
91-99%
99-99.9%
Triclabendazole is the most widely used flukicide because of its activity against immature fluke. Unfortunately this has led to the development of resistance in several countries and reports of suspected resistance in the UK continue to increase. Resistance, where it appears or is suspected, usually fails to kill the youngest immatures fluke with subsequent re-appearance of fluke eggs in the faeces earlier than would be expected if the drug retained full efficacy. As resistance develops eventually adult fluke are able to survive treatment as well. The possibility of other reasons for flukicide failure should always be considered, particularly if animals are in poor condition or may be suffering from liver damage. Where resistance is suspected to a particular product, then an alternative flukicide listed in the table above should be considered. Rotational use of Triclabendazole, closantel or nitroxynil should be considered where flukicides are used strategically, although additional treatments may be required in years when Triclabendazole is not used. Cheryl is available to contact on 07748392124 regarding any of your flukicide or worming product requirements. Prompt payment discount
Preventative Health Vaccine Plan With the continuing financial pressure on our farm clients we continue to explore ways of helping where we can whilst maintaining the all-important quality and standard of our service and products. As spring approaches many of our herds will be planning their annual preventative health vaccinations, which inevitably add to the already strained cash flow. In order to ensure we remain as competitive as ever, avoid annual pharmaceutical price rises where possible and negotiate improved terms for larger orders, this year we have forward purchased our spring requirements on BVD, IBR and Leptospirosis vaccines and have achieved competitive prices in so doing allowing us to fix their prices until April at least. As further support we are offering clients the opportunity to spread the payment of their vaccine requirements this spring over 3 months to help ease cash flow. If you feel this would be of interest to you please ring Bruce, Dan or Emily on 01228 710208 or chat with one of the vets.
Vet Investment and Spend Analysis The need for prudent spending has never been greater and as one of the variable costs on our clients businesses we believe it is important to understand what and more importantly where this is being spent. Obviously investment in herd health and performance (e.g. vaccination strategies, dry cow therapy, fertility) are crucial and vital to maintain, even during these challenging times However, identifying more cost related expenditure (e.g. mastitis, metabolic disease, pneumonia) and focusing attention and management changes here could not only reduce your costs but also improve performance and outputs. If you would value this free service, talk to one of the vets and we will pop out to discuss with you.
Contact us: Paragon Veterinary Group
Townhead Veterinary Centre
Carlisle House, Townhead Road
Newbiggin, Stainton,
Dalston, Carlisle, CA5 7JF
Penrith, Cumbria
Tel: (01228) 710208
Tel: (01768) 483789
vets@paragonvet.com
townhead@paragonvet.com