The dry conditions mean sheep worms are still mostly lower than normal for the time of year.

Our busy spring season appears to have extended well into June this year but finally things seem to be getting quieter on the emergency front.

There is not a great deal of scope for career promotions within veterinary practice. You start working life as an assistant and if you are lucky, bright or both you get invited to join the partnership or board of directors.

The effects of the winter are still being felt in hill flocks with ewes much thinner than normal in a lot of cases. After investigating a few flocks it seems the bad weather has combined with parasitism and/or trace element deficiency to lead to their poor condition. Just feeding more will not sort it – if you are concerned about your ewes, give us a call.

Finally we are starting to see the new shoots of Spring (still waiting for the economic new shoots we were promised in 2009!). The long hard winter certainly has had an effect on stock; I suspect mastitis in sheep will be a major problem this year as most sheep are leaner than ever.

I would love to say spring is here but the forecasts are showing more snow on the way. Not exactly ideal lambing weather! The early lambers are well into it now, with some mixed reports. Some sheep are in good condition, producing strong lambs and plenty of milk. However there have been reports of some sheep in very poor condition, the winter having taken its toll. Hill sheep seem to have scanned well in general, perhaps the persistent snow cover has forced sheep to eat the hay put out for them rather than the poor quality grass they would usually be foraging on.

We are pleased to welcome Stuart Morris to our farm vet team. Stuart has been vetting for twelve years in Gloustershire and will be based at Alnwick mostly. He says we do not know how lucky we are up here when it comes to TB. Lets try and keep it that way, with pre and post movement tests for those of you who have to buy cattle in.

We have had some fairly serious outbreaks of pneumonia in calves in the last month so keep on your guard. There appears to be two distinct periods of risk, firstly at housing and weaning then again at the turn of the year. Keep hemmels well bedded and ventilated to reduce humidity.  Consider constructing areas for calves to get outside and get prompt veterinary intervention for calves showing early signs of pneumonia.

The mild wet weather we are experiencing means there is more pneumonia on the go than normal due to the high humidity levels. Make sure your young cattle are free of parasites not exposed to too much dust through feed or bedding and have plenty of ventilation – cold is less of a threat to the cattle than pneumonia !

At a recent Defra meeting, a very informative update on Bovine Tuberculosis was given. As I am sure you are aware from the farming press, Bovine TB is increasing in the UK at an alarming rate. 10 years ago TB hotspots were confined to the South West of England and Ireland. However, the disease is moving in our direction, with most of the South West being under restrictions. So far in 2009 there have been 4 herd breakdowns in Northumberland,

Time seems to be flying on with the current season finding us doing lots of pre tupping ewe blood sampling and tup semen testing yet it doesn’t seem two minutes since lambing time! Unfortunately one of the seasonal problems has started already with 2 outbreaks of sheep scab in the area. This reinforces the message that whenever sheep are brought onto your holding they should be considered to be infected, thereby quarantined and treated (not forgetting other diseases such as CODD, footrot, drench resistant worms, and CLA to name a few which may come in with the sheep).

Congratulations to the Glendale Show Committee for a fantastic show this year. A good day was had by all, and fortunately the stock, horses and dogs all remained relatively healthy. We are looking forward to the Ingram Show on the 12th September, where some of our vets will be taking to the hills for the fell race.

 While the weather has not been brilliant it has meant the grass has kept growing and most farms have an abundance of grass. Remember lambs need an energy dense diet to thrive on so do not let it get too stemmy – increasing stocking density or the topper being the two most common ways of keeping the grass good. In other countries chemical topping is gaining in favour but I have not heard of anyone doing it here yet.  Other reasons why lambs are not hitting your expected growth rates are worms and cobalt deficiency and we are starting to see both.  Cobalt is a tricky one to diagnose and lambs have to be run out of the field and sampled straight away for the best chance of getting a true reading.  It may seem ages away but tupping for a lot of you starts in about 11 weeks which means it is time to go through your current mob of tups to give them their annual MOT. EBLEX produce a very good leaflet on this which is free to all farmers. We can come and check for you. any tups which you have doubts over.

Those of you that were at the Highland Show have come back reporting it was a good one with plenty of good stock on show.  With the tup sales not far away it is time to start planning to maximise potential markets for your pedigree stock. 

After 21 years Dick Thompson is retiring from the practice on the 2nd May. Dick and Rosie took over the reigns from MacPhearson, building the business from a 3 vet practice to 14 vets at the 2007 merger, at which point Dick retired from the partnership. He is a truly mixed vet, tackling everything from a marathon 3 hour foaling to blood transfusing a dog in the last year, but he has developed a particular interest in all things sheep. This culminated with his prestigious election as current president of the Sheep Veterinary Society. He will be most keenly missed in the Rothbury area where his workload will be shouldered by Jenny, Stephen and Joe. Dick will be having a retirement bash at the Coquetvale on the 7th May from 7.30pm so please come along and wish him well over a sausage roll and a beer or two.

Early lambers are well into it now and finding the warm, spring-like weather more than acceptable. Hopefully this continues but no doubt there is more wintry weather to come. Scanning results have been hit and miss so far this year. Investigation into poor scanning results have flagged up some interesting results with fluke being a major contributing factor along with the usual suspects of Toxoplasma, trace elements and nutrition playing their part.
Many thanks to all those who came along to our evening meeting last week, we hope you find these meetings beneficial. For those not able to get to the meeting, here were the take home messages:

We seem to be having a proper Winter this year with some real cold spells which is generally good for stock. So far, we have had few calf pneumonia outbreaks to contend with (health planning seems to be working in most cases!) but still be on your guard. Identification of the infectious agent (by BAL’s or ‘lung washes’) can mean vaccination early on in the outbreak so reducing the amount of disease and the amount of antibiotics to control the secondary invaders.

I suppose it is the time of year for inclement weather, but after such an awful summer it was hoped we may just get some sun this back end. Inevitably, the effects on stock have been evident with multiple disease outbreaks seen throughout the practice

We appreciate it has been a difficult time for many of you, battling with the floods. Hopefully you are all caught up now. The knock-on effects are noticeable as livestock matters have been delayed somewhat this Autumn. With straw being expensive and poor quality it would be prudent to check your cattle shed ventilation. High humidity in a shed increases the chances that the bugs expelled by one calf are able to infect other calves, compared to a low humidity situation where the bugs dehydrate and die before being inhaled. Ventilation is critical to reduce humidity – we are happy to come and measure up your sheds and see if ventilation is working with smoke bombs, and advise if it is not. 

August has been a surprisingly busy month for the farm vets. For starters, there has been the 'try-athlon' which most farm vets have been getting stuck into. Then there has been a fair bit of calving going on with many farms well into their autumn calving period. The last week of August has brought with it numerous cases of grass staggers in cows- make sure you have preventative measures in place (supplement with straw, magnesium bullets, feeding high magnesium minerals or cobs).