SHEEP December 2013 new clinic ewes xmas hours Seasons Greetings to all Have a Safe and Happy Christmas & Prosperous New Year Photos by Richard Hilson www.vshb.co.nz
Vet Staff Shuffle Brendan James As many of you will know Dave Kruger is currently in the process of changing his usual work pattern Waipukurau will see less of him and Napier/Hastings much more! Once Dave returns from a well-earned rest in the new year he will be based in the Napier/Hastings clinics, Wednesdays-Fridays each week and will continue to look after our loyal equine clients in the Waipukurau Clinic on Mondays and Tuesdays. There will be a transition period that we are currently working through so that eventually he will be based in Napier/Hastings full-time. Clients who usually see Dave will now have the opportunity to work with some of the other members of the Waipukurau Veterinary team, particularly Caroline Robertson, Kathryn Sigvertsen, Richard Sides, and Mike Fitzgerald who all work in the companion animal area. Mike Fitzgerald and Richard Sides, both of whom are excellent horse veterinarians, will also begin to take on more of the routine equine work including dentistry. Covering all of Hawke s Bay, including Dannevirke, definitely has its advantages in ensuring that you as clients are able to utilise the best skills amongst all of our veterinarians across the group. It also means that we are able to provide opportunities for our vets to move clinics within the group. When one vet moves we have a great team to work with his or hers existing clients which means that for you, there will be no change in the great levels of service we provide. So, in the next few months don t be alarmed if you don t see much of Dave he is very much still working for Vet Services Hawke s Bay, the only thing that has changed is his home base. Dannevirke Brendan James If any of you have driven through Dannevirke lately you may have noticed the new state of the art building on the left hand side when driving north (opposite Macdonalds). The new clinic, built by the Bush and Southern Farmers Veterinary Club was finished in mid November with the new clinic officially opening for business on Monday 25 November. The building includes the latest and greatest design technology meaning a roomy, clean and quiet clinic with plenty of space for an increased retail offering for pet owners and farmers alike. The staff who have worked in cramped surroundings for a number of years are relishing the new space and facilities and have already commented on how efficient the office and clinic set-up is, making a fantastic experience for clients and their pets. An official opening is planned for February next year, but if you are driving past make sure you call in and have a look around, the staff will be only too happy to see you and while you re there you can take advantage of the fantastic opening specials. Are you interested in being part of a Sheep and Beef Farm Discussion Group in 2014? If you are, contact Ian Walker or leave a message with the clinic in Waipukurau Phone (06) 858-9060
Hogget abortion - a Big Deal Richard Hilson Lambing hogget s is a mainstream activity now and some very good guidelines around best practice for best results have really made a difference. Every year we have several hogget flocks scan over 130% and hogget lambs can no longer be treated as a bonus. Best practice involves good weights and good animal health. A core part of the animal health is cover against the two main abortion agents in sheep in NZ - toxoplasma and campylobacter. Peculiar to ewe hoggets is the fact that they are breeding before they have wintered for the first time and unfortunately this means they are so young that they may not have natural exposure and gained natural immunity to some of these common abortion-causing agents. When vaccines are not used we expect to observe abortions at scanning time, seen as dead lambs or the remains of a pregnancy within the uterus of ewes. This may run up to 30% of a flock, as we saw in the early days with campylobacter abortion. A huge waste, even if you were treating the lambs as a bonus. Vaccination of breeding hoggets is always a good idea. Unfortunately there is not a vaccine for every problem and we don t even know what every problem is! This year we had a spike in the number of farms where unusually high numbers of hoggets were seen aborting, despite full vaccination. This is a perplexing issue and one that really tests the patience of farmers and vets involved as it can be difficult and costly to reach a diagnosis. The worst case locally resulted in nearly 20% of the pregnant hoggets subsequently aborting, with a loss of income around $20000, so the sums are huge. We have approached the CHB Farmers Vet Club and a commercial entity with the aim of being prepared in 2014 to fully investigate specific hogget abortion cases. The Executive felt this was an important local issue and will contribute towards a fighting fund, as will Vet Services. There are so many avenues to follow that costs are substantial, including the need to sacrifice some affected ewes to collect tissue samples. We will set up a scanning and sampling protocol and approach the worst affected farms that we are aware of from 2013 so they can be ready to act too. Our aim is to thoroughly investigate these cases with considerable technical input to basically leave no option untested. On a national basis hogget abortion has been a hard nut to crack. An advisory group, lead by Dr Anne Ridler from Massey University and with one of our vets also involved, continues to investigate this major production-limiting sheep issue and the work done out of Hawke s Bay in future will be an important part of that understanding. Artificial insemination of sheep Richard Hilson This is a job that we have been doing for several decades now and which may warrant a bit of press. There are two methods of artificially inseminating ewes, either through the cervix (which is simple but requires more semen and has a lower conception rate) or intrauterine via laparoscope (which is more labour intensive but has better success rates and uses less semen). We have been part of some very big programmes- sometimes two vets doing AI on up to 800 ewes a day. The release of exotic breeds saw a flurry of activity for our team- the Finnish Landrace, Texel, Oxford Down, East Friesian, Awassi and the Charollais are all good examples. AI allows access to individual rams that would normally only be expected to naturally mate maybe a couple of hundred ewes a year if carefully managed. Semen collection may mean a single ejaculate can be extended to provide enough semen for one hundred ewes to be artificially inseminated without the ram dying of exhaustion! The processed semen is frozen in liquid nitrogen so transport is easy and timing of AI is easy to manage The frozen semen will basically last forever and recently we have been using rams that have been dead for nearly two decades but are still able to leave offspring. A somewhat bizarre concept? Nearly all the AI we have done has been laparoscopic. The laparoscope has a fibre optic cable and an eyepiece that allows us to see inside the ewe s abdomen and to place the thawed semen directly into both sides of her uterus- hence the good conception rates and the need for less semen. The conception rates of 70-75% make this a feasible addition to the breeding programmes of both stud and commercial sheep breeders and with good access to fully recorded rams (on SIL or otherwise) throughout the country, access to top genetics is within reach of all sheep breeders. Give this some consideration- you can identify top rams locally and nationally via the SIL database and AI allows you to use as many of those as you wish. You don t have to outlay big money for a single ram- you can choose several rams to cover more bases or to ensure specific matings to specific ewes. With the job itself costing about $20 per ewe (including drugs) for reasonable numbers, this can be an easy way to access the best genetics in the country- unless you already have the best rams, of course! We are happy to discuss the process and the options anytime you want.
Lamb drenching considerations this summer Richard Hilson What to do this summer with lamb drenching? What about maintaining refugia? How do I use crops? The advice around this is getting clearer... We have had a lot of time to think about worms in recent months. We have been part of the Best Practice Parasite Management project and Simon Marshall is on the Wormwise committee. Parasitism was a big part of the topics at the International Sheep vets Conference in Rotorua earlier in the year and several of our vets attended a Wormwise Workshop at Massey last month. Helen Taylor and I also attended a day-long session with Landcorp east coast managers and staff to listen to Dave Leathwick, one of NZ s leading parasitologists. What are some key messages for you? With lambs, stick to regular drenching of complete mobs. Don t try to be clever and leave some animals undrenched for refugia. It will work for refugia but not for the lambs - so focus on productivity, grow them fast and get rid of them. In cases where we tried leaving lambs undrenched in the past we got lots of contamination from the undrenched lambs but they tended to suffer while their mates were doing fine. This is rather counterproductive. There is a place for extended drench intervals in lambs when there is clean feed in front of them, such as new crops or regrown silage or hay paddocks. Bear in mind that those areas will be contaminated at the next grazing though so you should not try to be clever about drench intervals on the second round. Otherwise try to stick to 28 day intervals. There will be worms re-established and laying eggs again in that time frame and the effect of adding a week to the time between drenches is that you will get a 2.5 times increase in egg output from stretching from a 28 day interval to a 35 day interval! This has big implications for high-use lamb areas for the autumn, when challenge can be very high. On the subject of clean areas, it is an absolute no-no to drench onto these areas and that message is not new. Ideally, put undrenched animals onto those areas and let them be there for a few days before drenching them - this gets some contamination with susceptible worms but not too much. It gets a bit trickier when you have a rotation through say lucerne or plantain and in this case you can probably complete an entire rotation (ie: contaminate every break) before beginning drenching. How else do we maintain refugia? An idea that just doesn t seem to get enough traction is adding the light ewes to lamb mobs. The important things to remember is that to achieve refugia they need to be undrenched light ewes and they need to be there in appropriate numbers. Depending on what your FECRT results are (and you haven t done one so you don t know, do you?) you may need as few as 5% ewes added - say 20 ewes on a mob of 400 lambs. You will need to take them out of the ram lamb mobs at some time in early February to avoid the ram lambs chasing them everywhere but the ewes can stay with the ewe lambs until tupping time. The ewes get fatter, which is good, and they contribute to refugia in the lamb areas, which is also good. This is also a great idea as it makes moving the lambs miles easier- they just follow the ewes. Too simple- maintain refugia and make lamb shifts easy. Another way to refugia is to follow the lambs with some undrenched ewes. This tends to be thought impossible as who would want to put a big mob of ewes in behind the lambs- they ll get fat and clean out the paddocks? But how about the two tooths only, or a small mob of older or light ewes? They don t even have to stay in the paddock- they can whip in for a day or two then be retired to their own paddock again. But they will be diluting the effect of the resistant worms by being undrenched themselves and they will probably be a net consumer of worms by eating more larvae than they leave via any egg output. Easy. It isn t really simple unfortunately but the basic rules for making anthelmintics last as long as possible are pretty clear. We feel we have a really good handle on them and we are happy to help work through the peculiarities of your grazing or finishing system with you if it means you get more sustainable drenching programmes. Theileriosis a new disease of cattle Mark Matthews The disease is seen as anaemia and in severe cases can result in death. Signs of anaemia include cows straggling on walk to the shed short rapid breathing pale rather than pink vulva pale udder and yellow eyes drop in milk production It is not transmitted to other animals so there is no risk to human health or food safety It is caused by a blood borne parasite which is transmitted by cattle ticks which pick up the parasite from infected animals and transmit them to non-infected. Geographical distribution of clinical cases is correlated to cattle tick distribution with Northland and Waikato being the most common sites for infections. A total of 327 farms in NZ have had positive diagnoses with about 20 new cases being reported weekly. There have been 2 confirmed cases in Hawkes Bay. One in Tutira and the other in the Nuhaka area. There is a treatment available which can be used under special conditions after a definitive diagnosis has been made. This includes recording each individual animal EID on a central database and inserting an additional Theileria Treatment tag to each animal. The worst affected animals will need blood transfusions as well. In HB the greatest risk to introduction is via dairy grazers and sire bulls. You should check Magnified image of a fully fed cattle with your suppliers for any history of the tick (approx 2.5mm) disease and check in coming animals for ticks. For further information contact one of our veterinarians Vet Services HB acknowledges NZVA and Dairy NZ for the information in this article.
Seasonal Update Hastings/Napier The early mating ewe flocks in the Mangatahi area have had the rams out since early December with some activity already being seen. These ewes are generally in very good condition so hopefully a good conception will result New season lambs continue to be killed with good weights and high proportion being picked FEC pre wean have been variable with some very high counts in some lambs that have required drenching. There also has been some issues with older cattle (especially yearling and 2 yo) with parasitism. This class of cattle are presenting with low FEC Waipukurau Mild winter conditions have been followed up by mild spring conditions, nice temperatures and regular rainfall over the last months. This has resulted if a feed surplus that has not been seen for a while in Central Hawke s Bay. Big stacks of silage have been made already and quite a few farms are still struggling with an abundance of pasture. A luxury problem, but still a problem when you try to maintain pasture quality for coming months. A big stack of silage or baleage is a nice insurance for drier conditions later in the year. Nice spring weather has resulted in great calving and lambing seasons. Metabolics have been a problem at the start, but, with the right management decisions, have been manageable over the season. Velvetting is in full swing Dannevirke Some good rain in November has seen grass growth continue to be good and a fair bit of supplement will have been made by now. The good days we have been having will continue to deplete the soil moisture reserve but will be helping lambs to get going. Reports seem to indicate that lambs are growing well and no major animal health issues have been reported. All of our bull testing is pretty much completed now. We have been testing a good number of bulls but we know that there are still many herd sire bulls that are not service capacity tested each year. This tool is so important in determining if the bull team is ready to service the cows and giving you an opportunity to remedy any problems before a high empty rate is seen in the autumn. I would encourage you to test your bulls every year +/- mark matthews making diagnosis difficult but are responding dramatically well to drenching. It looks like the submission rates in dairy herds are good. We have one farmer who is utilising teaser bulls this season to help pick up cycling cows and to encourage cycling similar to the ram effect in ewes. At this stage this is working extremely well. Forage harvesters are working overtime to make baleage and silage from the surplus grass around at the moment. Most farmers in the area will have a good supply of supplementary feed to get through the winter GeErt GeLling and seems to be going well. Last month has been busy with CIDR programs. Export programs and genetic gain to be made has triggered CIDR programs to be used on heifers in order to be able to do a Fixed Time AI for the whole mob. Over the years this has grown and has shown reliable pregnancy rates. As I am writing we are finishing the dog runs. If you have missed out for whatever reason please let us know, so we can fix that and make sure you will not miss out next year. Next activity on the calendar will be the ram runs. If you have not booked in yet please let us know as they are due to start shortly. In the mean time we look forward to summer and some time off for most of us. Could we continue to have some regular rainfall please? Simon Marshall semen test as well, depending on the situation. Remember that if you want to conduct a Faecal Egg Count Reduction Test (FECRT) this season then you need to start preparing a test group soon. This requires a group of lambs that are left un-drenched for a period of time before the test can start. Please give one of us a call to discuss the process so that things can get underway as soon as possible. By the time you are reading this we will have been in our new building for a few weeks. This is an exciting time for us but it will also be a busy one trying to find a new home for all the stock and gear. We look forward to seeing you in the new premises and hope that the run into Christmas is a smooth one for you. Ram runs No excuses! The ram run is underway again for 2013/14. Please contact us at the clinic to get your rams checked this year so you get the best results next year! If you ve run out of time, we can get you booked in for the new year.
SOME ANGUS PURE ON US! Purchase selected Merial Ancare cattle or sheep product and receive half an ANGUS PURE SCOTCH FILLET CUBE ROLL. WHILE STOCKS LAST. SEE YOUR VET FOR DETAILS. THIS IS AN ALTERNATIVE TO OUR HAM OFFER. Vet services hawke s bay HOLIDAY HOURS Date Day Napier Hastings Waipukurau Dannevirke 24-Dec Tue 8-5pm 8-5pm 8-5.30pm 8-5pm 25-Dec Wed Closed Closed Closed Closed 26-Dec Thu Closed Closed Closed Closed 27-Dec Fri 8-5.30pm 8-6pm 8-5.30pm 8-5pm 28-Dec Sat 9-1pm 9-3pm 9-12pm Closed 29-Dec Sun Closed 9-3pm 10-12pm Closed 30-Dec Mon 8-5pm 8-6pm 8-5.30pm 8-5pm 31-Dec Tue 8-5pm 8-5pm 8-5.30pm 8-5pm 1-Jan Wed Closed Closed Closed Closed 2-Jan Thu Closed Closed Closed Closed 3-Jan Fri normal hours resume For emergencies please note we have a duty vet available at all times NAPIER 210 Taradale Road 06 843 5308 HASTINGS 801W Heretaunga Street 06 876 7001 DANNEVIRKE 9 Gordon Street 06 374 7021 WAIPUKURAU 43 Takapau Road 06 858 9060 www.vshb.co.nz