Laboratory Closure

The Veterinary Laboratories Agency has decided that it can no longer afford to open the Laboratory in Shrewsbury on Saturday mornings. As always with these things there was no consultation over this matter, no chance to point out that if you have pneumonia or scour outbreak that starts on a Friday afternoon there is no prospect of a post mortem until Monday morning. Given the way that stock is kept today this could lead to serious losses. Sadly animals do not just fall ill or abort during office hours Monday to Friday. Given the choice it would be better if they were closed for one day during the week, Thursday perhaps, so there would not be two days each week without laboratory support. This will of course be three days when there are Bank Holidays and four days each Easter. In many ways we are lucky to have a Veterinary Laboratory on our doorstep. Shrewsbury takes samples from as far a field as Anglesey. It is difficult to understand given the number of staff that work there how they are not able to provide you with some sort of a service at the weekend.

Fake Drugs

Vetoquinol the company that makes Marbocyl are concerned because it has been brought to their attention that there are fake bottles of there product circulating in the country. Veterinary drugs are expensive, because it takes a lot of time and testing to develop them and it is a complicated process to manufacture a consistent product that will do what you want it to do and not stay in the animal longer than you were expecting and cause milk or meat residue problems. Many drugs are temperature sensitive and can be damaged if they have been exposed to either high or low temperatures. The drugs we receive from our wholesalers have been manufactured and tested under stringent conditions, transported to the wholesaler in a temperature controlled Lorry and stored in cold rooms until needed. All temperature sensitive drugs arrive at our surgery in a van with a fridge and are stored in one of our two fridges at the practice. We would welcome your help to stop the distribution of illegal drugs. If you are offered any drugs which you think may fall into this category we can put you in touch with people who investigate these matters.

Bluetongue

Last year we told you all sorts of things about Bluetongue and we were at first encouraged by the take up of the vaccine as the summer moved into autumn until it became apparent that there was not going to be a spread of the disease this side of the channel, for once a miserable summer did bring some benefits. I was a little surprised that the crazy EEC rules that allowed the free movement of stock from different zones and brought with it a significant number of infected animals. We were all holding our breath hoping these animals would not trigger an outbreak of the infection on neighbouring farms. Fortunately this did not occur.

New Strain of the Disease

Last year on the continent sero type one spread across France to further complicate the picture. Reports are that it is not as severe as the type eight version, but it has none the less caused significant problems on some farms. The only good thing about serotype one is the restriction zone it has generated now prevents the export of animals to the UK and it should make us a bit safer for a while at least from bringing Bluetongue here on a lorry.

Time to Vaccinate

I will not try to predict what will happen this year, we will be very lucky not to be affected by Bluetongue at some point during the summer. DEFRA’s policy of vaccinate if you want to in England will do little to slow the spread of the disease if it does come here. The only safe way is to protect all of your stock and hope that your neighbours will do the same so the challenge from the virus will be manageable. Cattle injected last year will need a single booster this time, sheep are still able to respond to a single injection. The most efficient time to use the injection is in the next two months. It is not good to handle heavily pregnant ewes if you can avoid it so it would be better to wait until the lambs arrive before the vaccination is given.

More Sheep Worrying

This is proving to be a bad year for dog attacks on ewes and lambs. It is difficult to advise as to how you can avoid these sometimes devastating losses. It is not always animals that are in fields with footpaths or young lambs that are not able to defend themselves that are involved. In recent incidents the animal concerned had traveled some distance from home and passed and ignored other groups of ewes and lambs before loosing control in a field of ewes and lambs. I am never sure why some normally trustworthy dogs do this, often more than one dog is involved, but some animals act alone. I know it is difficult, but if you do see dogs about that are not under close supervision, especially if they seem to be on some sort of mission try and find out what they are up to as it could be your sheep that are the next victims.

Scouring Lambs

Nematodirus is a strange parasite in the way that eggs passed on to the ground do not develop at first until there has been a period of cold weather. This triggers maturation so there is a massive infestation waiting when lambs first start to take to the grass. We have had several mild winters and some eggs may have lain dormant for two or three years waiting to be activated. The severity of an outbreak tends to be worse if we have a mild spring as the eggs will mature faster. If you have any new leys try to reserve them for the young lambs or use fields that were not grazed by lambs last year. This gives the animals a chance to grow a bit before they have to cope with the disease.

Treatment Options

Nematodirus tends to start at the same time as coccidiosis so it is important to use either Deccox or Vecoxan to prevent this disease before the worm larvae get established in the gastro intestinal tract of the lambs. At the first signs of scour all of the lambs should be drenched and this should be repeated every three weeks to check the parasite. So far there have been no reports of resistant strains of nematodirus.

Renal Damage

Animals that fail to respond have already become dehydrated and suffer damage to their kidneys. It is important to intervene before this happens. Some lambs are reluctant to drink from water troughs and rely on their mother’s milk and the moisture that they can get from the grass to supply their daily needs.

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