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One of the main benefits of creating a comprehensive herd health plan is that it requires farmers and vets take a critical review of all areas of animal health on the farm.
“It is important because in a herd situation, animal disease or illness is not an individual condition – it is a symptom of an overall pattern within the herd,” said Ballymoney-based vet Keith Laughlin.
“We need to build up a picture on the pattern of disease within the herd. Then, as part of an animal health plan, you can move towards controlling that,” he added.
This involves gathering information from the likes of the farmer’s medicine use records, the herd book, and results of any diagnostic tests.
Keith is a partner in Riada Veterinary Clinic, which covers farms across the north coast area of Northern Ireland. He has worked with Dairylink participant John Oliver to develop an animal health plan for his farm business in Limavady, Co Derry.
Free webinar
Keith was speaking at a Dairylink webinar, which went online at ifj.ie/dairylinklive on Monday evening. A blank template for an animal health plan is available at the same link and this format was used when creating the farm specific plan for John.
We should see the silage pit extension finished this week as well
The document contains a calendar, which can be filled in as a summary of the actions required in each livestock group throughout the year. It is easy to get mixed up or forget about administering a vaccine or dose, so the one-page calendar aims to provide a quick reference point.
“If you make these things easy, then they will happen. If things are mixed up or difficult, then they are less likely to happen and that’s when things go wrong,” Keith maintained.
Standard procedures
Another key part of health planning is setting out protocols, or standard operating procedures for everyone on the farm to follow when there is an issue.
Keith said that consistency is needed in health practices so that, for example, if a calf has scour, it is always treated under a protocol that has been designed by the local vet.
He recommends not setting too many targets in health plans. Instead, the plan should focus on the top two or three health issues on the farm at that time, and then it should be reviewed regularly, usually once a year.
The concept of an animal health plan being a “working” or “live” document was mentioned several times throughout the webinar. It explains why quality assurance schemes across Ireland require farmers to periodically review health plans with their vet.
“Hopefully, you then make progress addressing whatever the main health issues are as time goes on,” Keith said. Investigate health issues
Farmers should take samples from sick animals and get their vet to investigate it, Sarah Campbell from MSD Animal Health said during the Dairylink webinar.
“If you don’t, you are treating the signs, such as high temperature or dehydration, but you are not getting to the root cause of exactly what bug you are dealing with,” she said.
Sarah gave examples of taking samples of scour from sick calves, or clots from cows with mastitis.
Generally, good samples will give good, useful results
However, she acknowledged that laboratory results can be slow to come back and in some cases, the animal will have already recovered, or maybe even have died.
“It will still help us build up a profile of that farm, so that we can say with certainty ‘x, y or z bug is present’ and this will inform management practices,” Sarah said.
During the webinar, local vet Keith Laughlin was asked about lab results that show numerous pathogens that have caused an issue, such as mastitis.
“Generally, good samples will give good, useful results. These things are rarely simple and there is usually more than one organism present, but generally one pathogen proves to be the main problem,” Keith responded.
“With mastitis, it is generally either environmental or contagious and, once you know which one it is, the management becomes much more simple, because they spread quite differently,” he added.
Giving his views on his own farm-specific plan, John Oliver said that it ultimately comes down to saving money.
“For me, animal health planning was about retaining animals in the herd at full production for longer.
Generally, good samples will give good, useful results
“It was about reducing replacement costs and reducing costs associated with treating animal health problems,” he said.
John explained that the initial conversation with Keith about creating a plan did not arise because of any one health issue that was occurring on the farm.
“There was a collection of several small issues, from higher [somatic] cell count than what should have been, cow feet issues that we weren’t getting on top of, pneumonia and scour problems in calves that were never all that bad, but were not as good as they could have been,” he said.
For that reason, the Oliver plan initially focused on improving three areas, namely cow flow in sheds, milking routine and calf rearing facilities. John said that having accurate records of health issues and treatments used have allowed him to track how these issues have improved and what treatments worked on his farm.
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