As a farm practice our main areas of interest are Dairy, Pigs, Goats and Sheep. We are a purely farm animal practice and our vets have chosen to specialise in these areas.
We are willing to tackle anything. As the industry has changed we have changed with it. We still offer the traditional farm services – fertility work, mastitis investigations, emergency calls etc. More and more we are becoming involved in overall herd management. This has been led by the pig and poultry industry where the vet is seen more as part of the management team along with the other consultants – nutritionists, cost advisors etc. This approach allows us to become involved in the overall disease picture rather than focusing on individual animals. Thus the overall herd health benefits.
Within the Dairy Industry there has been a move towards Farm Assurance and a requirement for Herd Health Plans. There is a standard Herd Health Plan drawn up by the BCVA – the British Cattle Vet Association. There are funds available – through the Dynamite Project at Bicton College – which pay for us to set up the Plan on your farm. This would involve a 2-hour session on the farm to set up the plan, an NVQ level 3 qualification and 2 evening meetings to discuss various animal health projects.
Herd Health Plans have been seen as an inconvenience. The aim of the project is to establish an active herd health plan that will positively benefit the farm. Once established the plan can be used to monitor disease, drug usage etc. This can then be reviewed at regular meetings to assess our progress.
As stated above we are becoming more involved in overall herd management. This has involved working more closely with the whole farm team – farm manager, herdsman, nutritionist, farm consultant and the vet. Many farm problems are multi-factorial and cannot be solved by one person. By working together and sharing our expertise we are better able to solve problems and move the farm forward. On the farms where we are already doing this we have seen very positive benefits. Our clients have appreciated having everyone working together rather than having three different sources of advice!
We are able to draw on expertise from within and outside the practice. We work closely with several feed companies and specialist farm advisors to provide an overall service.
With our vets we are looking at preventive control of mastitis, fertility, lameness, young-stock diseases etc.The preventive services are divided into modules, which our clients can use to suit their needs. These modules include;
Fertility Module
Mastitis Module
Lameness Module
Young Stock Module
We encourage our clients to use the NMR based computer system Interherd and thus provide monitoring of health issues prior to the routine farm visit. We also bench mark customers so that farm performance can be assessed with other customers and a like for like comparison can be made.
The Farm Practice is supported by the Practice accounts and IT divisions which are shared by all the veterinary businesses at Nutwell.