Good evening everyone, and thank you for joining us for the 3rd in our series of our monthly BA BCVA student clinical clubs. My name is Sara Peterson from the BCVA board, and I'm going to be chairing the session tonight. Apologies that we're just starting a little bit later than planned.
We had an unscheduled power cut, but we're all back on, back on track now. Our session tonight is longer than our normal webinars, so we are gonna be running until 9 p.m.
So we've got masses of time for questions and discussions after Jenny's presentation tonight. So please type any questions that you've got into that Q&A box at the bottom of your screen. Put them in as we go through.
We'll be saving them till the end, but make sure you write them down while they come into your head. Similarly, if you do have any technical problems tonight, you can also let us know by using that Q&A box, as we've got webinar vets on hand to help us. If you can't see the Q&A box, then if you move your mouse, then the taskbar should become visible at the bottom of the screen.
So tonight, it gives me great pleasure to introduce, Jenny Hull as our speaker. Jenny's a fellow board member, and she'll introduce herself, at the start of her presentation. But Jenny's going to be speaking on the topic of the vet year in the beef suckler herd.
So now I'm gonna pass over to Jenny, who's gonna give you a little bit of background about our work at BCVA. Also introduce herself. She's also got lots of poll questions to try and keep this as interactive as possible, throughout the presentation.
Just to let you know, all answers are anonymous. So even if you're not quite sure, just have a guess. So, before I take up any more time, I'll hand over to Jenny now.
Thanks very much, Sarah and good evening everyone and and welcome. Let's just start off with a little bit about BCBA who we are and what we do. And so we're a member organisation established in 1967 and specialist cattle division of BA BVA and we're, it's run by elected board of directors or volunteers.
We're all volunteers that give our time to try and, represent the, sort of vets in, in practise. As well as students, etc. And we're a mix of practising vets, academia and industry, and it's made up of, president, is Nicky Hopkins, and, senior vice president is Dave Barrett, who some of you Bristol guys will know, and then the junior vice president is Elizabeth Berry.
And then we've got, Phil Elkins, Colin Mason from SAC and Sally Wilson. And then the rest of the board is Karen Bond, Rebecca Cavill, Katie Fitzgerald, Sarah Gibbs, Cathart, myself, Rachel Hayton, Sarah, John Remnant, who the Nottingham guys will recognise, Bridget Taylor, Sarah Tomlinson, and Paul Williams. So, it's, there's a real mix of folk there and it's, it's a, it's a really good group.
And our mission is to be the voice of the cattle vet and, and, and drive tomorrow's practise and, and sort of that's kind of really been ahead of the, ahead of the game. And we've got lots of different sort of groups and working groups and steering groups and, and we're all part of, we all sort of divvy up, the, the work we do. And, and, and, sort of, then this is the main thing is how, how do you, how do you get involved in it?
Well, become a member and become a student member. And, it's now 5 pounds from now until the day you graduate, so, and, full membership is 25 pounds per year. And you get newsletters, access to kind of practise, and, and then obviously webinars like tonight, and at the moment, that, the member benefits are free.
And also we've got student reps, so, hopefully you guys will recognise, some of these guys and they're, sort of working with us and, and, and, and just sort of helping, kind of, help us as BCVA, find out what we can do to help students. So, right, first question, it's a bit of a tester, we're gonna test the technology. If you could all answer, which vet school do you attend and so we'll just, if you all vote now, I've, I've always wanted to say that.
If, we, 3. Yeah. So I've just launched the, the polling there.
Like we said, there's no, no trick questions here. We're not checking up on you. So it's just to check that you're all happy with voting, and just let us know who we've got online as well.
So, we've got 85% of you that have voted, nearly 90%, can the last few just vote? OK, I'm gonna end it in a couple of seconds. OK, so tonight we've got Liverpool.
Woohoo, 32% of those in the audience attending Liverpool. Then next up we've got Nottingham, Bristol, then RVC, and a few coming in as well from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Surrey, so great, brilliant. Spread someone from every vet school.
Brilliant. Thank you. Great stuff, right, we'll, we'll crack on.
So a little bit about me, I graduated from RVC in 2007, and I was in practise for 10 years before. Myself and my two business partners, founding, Black Sheep Farm Health, which is a farm only, practise in Northumberland, and we are mainly beef and sheep. In that time, I've also completed my certificate, and I've been a board, BCVA board member since 2016, and then, recently, also started a family.
Right, Pall question again. OK, get, let's get your minds into, beef mode rather than, black and white dairy cow mode. So name the breed of cow.
So is this a red Aberdeen Angus, a South Devon, a Hereford, a Simmental, or a ling? All vote now. How are we doing Zara, yeah, we've got a strong favourite coming in here.
We've still got a few of you left to vote. I'll give you a couple more seconds. Like we said, there is no wrong answer.
Well, there are wrong answers, but it doesn't matter. We're all here to learn. I don't actually know that the answer to this is.
OK. Brilliant, right, but over 90% of you have voted. OK, so we're gonna end it there.
Right, we have a clear winner here. I don't know whether it's right, but D. Simmental with 64% of the votes, then we've got Hereford with 20%, Ling with 9%, South Devon 5%, and Red Aberdeen Angus at 2%.
So the answer is the simmmental. So that's good. That's got your beef, beef brains thinking.
So right, that involvement in the beef year, and I'll start by saying that sort of, working with beef and beef medicine isn't all about just doing caesareans, that's the. That's the first and foremost. And there's so many areas that as you get into practise and as you develop, you can really get your teeth into, and, and, and, there's, you know, there's lots of, lots of places and we'll go through some of these and there's lots of parts that you can get, get your head into.
And and I think the main thing to remember that the beef year goes in a cycle and it's, it's, it's the same sort of yearly cycle and everything sort of runs in this, this, this circle and might be slightly different to sort of, you know, dairy dairy practise where you've kind of got very much sort of regular routines and year-round calving on on dairy farms and and, and it, it the the vet year follows the The beef year. So we've got sort of the carving, preparing for bullying period, heifer selection, service and conception, the bullying period, PDing, weaning and housing and preparing for carbon again. So it does just keep going around in a, in a cycle and then and then the calf almost has a cycle as well in terms of, we, you know, we start with birth, castration isbudding sort of growing through the you know, at the foot and and through the summer, weaning in the autumn.
And and then housing and, and, and all that comes with that. And for the large part, I'm sort of going on. Spring, spring carving beef herds, that's the majority of where we're at in the UK.
There is still some autumn carvers and, carving herds, and we have to tweak that a little bit, but majority now I think will be, spring, spring carving. And so where can vets get involved? Well, that's what we're, we're gonna go through, tonight.
And we'll start at the beginning if you like. Well, we'll start with sort of preparing the ball, . And it's, and, you know, it's really important.
So we're into another poll question already. So there's quite a lot of research being done on this and and the, and, and what a lot of studies have found is that there's a number of bulls that are subfertile and the question is, what percent of bulls do you think are subfertile? And A is 1%, B is 5%, C is 20%, D is 50%.
This is studies that have been done and published showing the number of the percent of bulls that are subfertile. And, and therefore, are not infertile, so not completely, sort of duds, and, are not able to serve a cow at all, but subfertile. So, you know, kind of, we, we really want a bull to be able to serve 40 to 50 cows.
So it's, you know, anything less than that is, is really. You know, where we're at in terms of sub fertile. You can't stop a large number of cows.
How are we doing, Sarah? We've got 100% of voted, which is brilliant. I don't think we've ever achieved that before.
OK, so, again, a clear winner right from the start, we've got C at 20% with 76% of the vote. 12% split, so 12% saying B, 12% saying D, and none for A. Spot on, well done.
20%, yeah, that's, that's what a lot of researchers found is that, that potentially 20% of bulls are subfertile. And so the main thing is that your, your bull's, breeding year really is, bull fertility testing, or semen, semen testing or, the, the, the more modern, name would be BBSE, which is bull breeding Soundness exam, and I think the Americans like, like BBSE as well. And, here, I, hopefully most of you have seen this in at work in, practise, on, on EMS.
This is an electroejaculator and, this is the, obviously the RAM probe, and, and can do to use for RAMs as well, and this is the bull probe. And, . And you're wanting to get a, a sample really and you're checking, you're checking over the ball.
So you're checking his his testicles and his prep use and you're measuring his scrotal circumference and what and, and, and making sure that he's going to, you know, in terms of fit for purpose is a bull that's gonna serve 40 to 50 cows, and that's, and that's what you need. And then this is, this is only one part of it, you know, the other part of, bull fertility testing is, is checking the rest of him, you know, are his feet all right, are his joints all right? Does, is his back all right?
And, and can he, can he do his job? And so that's a big, a big part of our work will be, both fertility testing, especially in the spring of the year, ready for them to, ready to, for them to go out. But even before that, a big, a, a big part of our work in a, in a, a way you can really get involved, is, is helping farmers with bull selection and, and that's so that's EBVs.
It's a big part, you know, estimating breeding values, and, and these graphs, once you get your head around them. And, and we haven't really got time to go into these day, but once you get your head around EBVs, they're really quite, they're really quite simple, and, and so you want to look at estimating breeding values, to pick a ball that's, that's easy carving and has a short gestation length and, a lighter, birth weight to really reduce your carving, difficulties. And, and then, you know, when they have bought a bull, we want to look at disease status, you know, do we, is it, make sure it's not a BVDPI, and, and, post-sale semen testing as well, make sure they've bought a fertile bull and, and not, a bull that's a problem.
What we tend to do, for a lot of our clients is when there is bolt, obviously not this year, but when there is bull sales and the sale catalogue comes out, we actually sit and go through the, the sale catalogue and, and pick out, in terms of EBV's, good and bad, . you know, good EBVs and, and, and, and bulls that, that, that the, our, our clients should be, buying. And this is a classic, this is a corkscrew, penis, again, something that's, Sort of where, you know, kind of, we're looking for and, and sometimes you're not going to pick this up on a semen test and so this is something, this is a case of, of watching the, the bulls and, and making sure they're working and that's a job for the farmer to make sure he is working properly.
Let's look. So, oh, yes, this is an interesting one. So another poll question.
So what is the law regarding bull nose rings and the ringing of bulls? So, A is, the answer is that it's a legal requirement for all balls over 10 months of age, B, a legal requirement for all balls over 2 years of age, C, it's not a legal requirement, and D, it's a HSE, so health Health and Safety Executive, a recommendation for all balls over 10 months old. So, so what, what does everyone think?
OK, a lot of people straight in with their answers again, we're not quite at 90% yet, so I'll give you just a couple more seconds just to consider and think. Again, have a stab at it if you even if you're not sure, it doesn't matter, just for fun. OK, so I'm gonna close that.
There. OK, so another clear winner with nearly 2/3 of the vote is D, HSE recommendation for all bus over 10 months. Then we've got 20% for C, 8% for B, and also 8% for A.
Spot on, you guys are on fire this evening. Yeah, it's a, it's a health and safety a recommendation for all bulls over 10 months of space. It used to be in the, in the distant past that it was a it was a legal requirement for bulls.
But that has since been dropped. But, HSE strongly recommend that balls are ringed and, and have, I am aware of a recent health and safety inspection that, that asked for all the balls to be rung just on, health and safety grounds with regards to, handling them. And most pedigree sales, require balls to be sold with a ring in, you know, often they would be holes are trained and led round the ring.
So have a selection. So we've, you know, we've, we've, we've covered the ball, we've seen and tested him, we've, we've helped to buy him in terms of checking his EBVs. We've post-sale tested him, and, and, and now we're looking at the, the other side.
We're looking at cows and heifers, so. Here for selection is another big part that we get involved on our clients' farms, and it's a great way to get in there right at the start, and, and, and help, help these guys, you know, pick the best, especially when they've got a big batch of, of, of. To to sort through and you can help select.
And the main thing is, is often weight, you know, these homebred heifers, so much information goes into how much a heifer weighs in terms of, you know, potentially she's calved right at the front of the calving season, because she's the biggest and, so therefore her mum was potentially the most fertile because she's got in calf . Early on, and then she's grown well, so her mother has milked well and looked after her. And then she's, and she's had really good growth rates and she hasn't had pneumonia and she hasn't had lameness problems because she's one of the biggest.
So weight's really important. And then vaccinations as well, getting all the vaccinations in before the ball goes in. So you know, especially.
BVD, and then lepto and IBR on farms that need it potentially huskback, and, and I think, and, and repo tract inspection scoring so that's a the with in terms of bully he is at 15 months and carbon at at 2 years old, actually having a examining the. reproductive tract and having a feel and make sure that the, the uterus and the, ovaries are all there. Are they cycling yet?
You know, are they old enough and they, have they hit puberty and they're cycling and, and, and there's a scoring system as well, 1 to 5. I'm, I tend to be quite sort of simple yes or no, either they feel as though they've had a, they've been a bully and they have been. cycling or, or not, you know, tiny little sort of pencil sized uterus and nothing happening on the ovaries.
And check for pregnancy, you'll be amazed how many heifers when we go to do heifer selection, that are in calf and, and also check for free martins as well. And, a great example of this would be, one of our clients was buying some bulling heifers off. Another farm, and we suggested that she get her, their vet to pelvic measure them, and their vet went pelvic measured them and found that half, half of them are actually in calf and in cast of Charole as well.
So that was dodged a bullet there. So that was sort of, you know, money well spent in terms of going to pelvic measure. And the pelvic measure, the, basically, you're measuring the internal, area.
You're measuring the width and the height, tangent them together and that gives you an internal area. And we, and we know that the abnormally small internal areas and heifers within abnormally small pelvises are more likely to have calving difficulties. The number one cause of dystoria is foetal size, but the #2 cause is a small pelvis and pelvic area.
So I think cork in a bottle. So again, it's a really good a good sort of afternoon's worth of work potentially going out, help these farmers, . Weighing these heifers, starting a vaccination programme, pelvic measure and pull out any abnormally small pelvises, check for free martins, pull them out, and they can go straight into the fat pen and, and not, not end up blocking up the herd.
And, and, and, and, yeah, as I say, start vaccinations and, and everything. And the pelvic, internal pelvic area is very, very inheritable. And so the more you keep pelvic measuringhas coming into the herd, the more you pull out really small pelvises, the more you genetically select away from them really abnormal sort of.
Small outliers. It's the other good part of heifer selection is temperament as well. So the the Limmiros heifer that flies into the stocks, goes out the front up over the top of the front gate is one that sort of, for me, usually gets black mark against its name and it, it doesn't get measured, let alone kept.
And artificial insemination. So that's another part, another area that That vets can get and get involved, especially on the beef herd. I think an examination, AI is very much underused in the beef sector and it's a really great tool in terms of bringing in new genetics and And superior genetics.
I mean, there's some brilliant work by AHDB to show that the AI calves in comparison to conventional calves on a farm that have been bred by the, the bull on the farm, weigh sort of 35 40 kg heavier at weaning. And it's just that superior genetics, but also, they've often, if they've been synchronised in AI, they tend to carve right at the start of the carving period as well. And so that's, they, they're gonna be bigger and, and, and, and heavier and way heavier at, at weaning.
So again, another. Another area that we can get involved. I mean, Black Sheep Farm Health, and we sort of offer a complete package in terms of AI.
We synchronise them, help them select the, a bull that they want to use, you know, the best bull for them that's, that's in the bull catalogues, be it genus or Cogent. Oh, from the breed society and then go out and AI the cows as well. It's, and again, it's another really good area that that vets can that can get involved.
. And I think this is, I'll keep coming back to this. This is the, the length of the, so the ultimate calculation in terms of, of, of how well a beer is doing is kilos of calf weaned per cow put full. That's the ultimate, that, that figure, that calculation feeds in.
So much in terms of how early in the calving pattern, and therefore how old the calves are, how well they've grown, the nutrition, the milk, how well the mother's milked, whether there's, disease, whether there's been a worm burden, all of that feeds into that, that kilos of calf weaned per, per cow put to the bull. And, and something that really affects that is the length of the bullying period. I mean, a great joke that I, I heard when I was locuming was we carved twice a year, the 1st 6 months and the 2nd 6 months, and that's just the only thing that determined that was the length of the bullying period, and they basically just didn't take the balls out.
It's really important to encourage farmers to do a 9-week bullying period and That way we can really tighten up the calving pattern and really tighten up, so we have a nice even batch of, of calves that, and it, it's, you know, the classic is the calf that's born late, the little scraggly calf that, that's 2 or 3 months behind everyone else. He's more likely to get pneumonia. He's, he's, he's too young for vaccinations at the right time and And just the farmers hate, seem to hate taking the bull out and, and, and love to have a a protracted bullying period, but it's, it's really important to try and encourage them to, to, to take the bull out and, and especially when they, they, they love to complain about the fact that they've been calving for months and getting up and, and, and, and going and, and checking for cows calving.
For, for months and months and months, but they can simply solve it by by shortening up their their bullying period. And then weaning and housing, and this is, this is so for cows that are this is a mention for the autumn carving cows. So, so when we, so we're going to be weaning autumn carving cows in the summer potentially.
So whether we use a dry cow tube, or a teat ceiling weaning and therefore drying off, and help prevent, some mastitis. And, and housing for these, you know, in calf cows would be sort of, you know, kind of looking at a winter ration and, and, and, been involved in nutrition. Body condition scoring as well, you know, it's not just a, something for sheep farmers and dairy farmers, you know, really important to, to body condition score, beef cows as well.
And attention to feet potentially is nothing, if you, if she's lame when she gets house. Potentially going to be a lame all all winter potentially and and housing treatments as well. So having a health plan that sort of works, sits down and works out exactly what product when for these for these cows and potentially vaccinations as well while they're in over the winter.
And so we've, we've, we've went to these cows and we're coming up to pre-calving, so we're getting ready, for, for pre-carving. So what do these cows need to get ready for, ready for the calving season, the, you know, the, the critical time, the most important time. Well, do they need a scour vaccine?
Do they, do they have a rotavirus, a problem and, and cows sort of 3 weeks pre-calving. Do they need a scour vaccine? Do they need trace elements, trace elements are really important, in terms of, potentially, iodine causing, slow carbs and, and stillborn calves and, and, and selenium potentially for, involving immunity and retained cleansings potentially.
And again, body condition scoring, are these cows over fat? Are they are they too thin? Are they too fat coming up to calving and metabolic blood profiling as well, so.
Again, 3 weeks pre-calving, have a look at the, protein status of these cows. There's some work by, Edinburgh University, had a look at, the, protein status of cows in relation to the quality of colostrum that they produce and they showed that if you, If you, if cows are low in protein, they can't sort of produce those building blocks to lay down really good quality high antibody, colostrum and, and, and metabolic profile pre-calving, can, can give you a heads up of that and, and especially farms that have problems with say joint ill, nasal ill, that sort of thing, where potentially losing quality. Has been involved.
The metabolic profiling is, is, is really useful. And again, you're getting on farm, you can body condition score and you're getting on farm just before calving. And again, that, that profiling will potentially lead, leading to pre-calving ration advice, you know, do these, these cows need 0.5 kg of soy per day for the 3 weeks pre-calving because their their protein levels are very low and they're, they're quite thin and they're not going to produce some quality cloth.
And a big part of of farm veterinary medicine now is knowledge transfer, and, and, and farmer and stockmen education. It's a big, big part and, and so running carving courses and lambing coursing and, and, and mastering medicines courses. So, what's now a recommendation, from the red tractor farm assurances that someone has, has been on, one of these medicine courses.
And again, getting involved in that education, I think we ran, a number of lambing courses and the calving course last year, and, and really well attended, you know, a real range of, of people, sort of new stockmen, on the courses and, and, and thought that, are new into cattle potentially. Again, big part of farm veterinary medicine now is, is education and, and knowledge transfer. And then we're into carving, and, and, and potentially assist carving, caesareans, and sick calves, sick cows, retain cleansings, all the things that come with, with carving.
It's a, it's, it's for us, we are very, very seasonal practise. So our March, April, May is very, very busy, and because the majority. Of our herds are spring carving herds.
And, and so they're all the bits that you're gonna be, that's the fire brigade stuff. That's the emergency stuff that, that you're gonna be, you're gonna be going out to potentially. But they can sort of, you know, all of these things can lead on to, to things.
So I tend to be if I'm, . Yeah, performing a caesarean on a cow at 3 in the morning, I tend to ask the farmer why we're all here doing this. And, and it's a good lead in to, you know, what's the EBVs of the bull, you know, is the, have the cows been overfed, you know, what's, what's led us here if you like.
And another point to, to get in potentially post calving or met checks of high risk cows, you know, kind of metritis isn't just a disease of dairy cows, shall we say. So a really good, so any cows that we have had to go and cleanse, we tend to do a met check, 2 to 3 weeks later and to make sure these cows are clean and aren't, aren't full of puss, especially when we're running out of time for the, if the cows are calved late in the calving season. We're running out of time to get them cleaned out and back and ready back in calf when they go back to the ball.
So that's a good, we always tend to, glow cleanse a cow. We make a note of her number and, and stick a note on the diary for a fortnight's time to go back and check and make sure she's, she's clean. Any of those high risk cows, so twins, abortions, poorly cows, potentially milk fever, anything, anything that's caused, to knock anything that cow or anything that's potentially caused retained, retained cleansings.
And a post, post calving meeting, you know, it's, it's, it's really good to, sit down and, and analyse the results and, and, you know, kind of how, you know, if there's been problems, how many how many caesareans, how many cystic carbons. What's, in terms of calf disease, pneumonia, and navel ill, joint ill, that sort of thing, and potentially come up with a plan for, you know, update the health plan and come up with a plan for, for, for next year. And, I'm jumping around a bit now, but, we've, we've finished calving, we've chucked all the cows out, they've gone out with the, bull for the summer.
They've gone out and they've, the bull's been out for 9 weeks and then he's been brought back in again. And and it's PDing time and it depends on the farm, what fits into their system. And so, some will PD once the calves are weaned and the cows are housed.
Some people will want their pregnancy, the PD and done sort of 6 weeks after the bulls come in, and so they know what's happening with the cows, which direction they're going to go, and, and, and just it depends on the system. But the main thing is to, when PDing is to make the most use of of those cows coming past under your nose and and, and, and, and, and add other tasks in. So trace element testing, Yoni testing.
BVD check tests for the calves that potentially at that time if they're old enough. And again, body scoring, you know, these, these cows are coming towards the end of summer, and what sort of condition are they going into the shed, you know, how much silage, how well are they going to have to be looked after going into the, going into the shed this, this back end and analyse the results as well, you know, I, I never, I'm never able to sort of concentrate and pick out numbers. I always have to ask, stop and ask the farm at the end, right, how many empty was that?
Out of how many, what percentage conception rate is that? And is that good? Is that bad?
And, you know, is there an issue? Can we put that, you know, is that one batch of cows that was with a lame bull and the bull went lame and they had to swap the balls around and that took time, or, or, or just analyse, you know, kind of what's going on and and where and, and, and potentially look at being able to, to do something about it, then. And so that's we've kind of covered, covered cows really for now and, and go through their sort of their year, if you like, and where they, and where vets can get involved and, and the, the bit to come on to is the, the calf.
The calf has a, a, a year, yearly cycle as well if you like, and, and, and where we can get involved. And so obviously, hopefully you aren't doing, they're doing assisted carvings and caesareans and such. But potentially there again, you know, what's, what's gone wrong?
Why, is that, why I've got sort of, you know, big calves of, of required caesareans, and, and, and so this goes hand in hand with the metabolic profiling of cows. In terms of the checking lostrum, so failure of passive transfer. So, doing ZST bloods on these calves under 7 days of age and have a, have a look at, have a look at whether they've had enough lostrum and claustrum is, is all about sort of quality.
Quantity and quickly. So has it had enough cluster of the right quality in the right time frame and or, or has something, have we had failure of passive transfer somewhere and that's led to, to, to other, other diseases and sick calves and some navel joint that sort of thing. And so hygiene and clustering management as well in relation to naval and and joint and what's going there and what's going on there.
And, and again assisted carvings caesareans, great big dumb calves that have had a real chewing, again, potentially put them at risk of not getting on their feet, not, not getting their lostrum quickly, and, you know, do they need they, do they need assistance. And, it's a big, it's a, it's a busy time, but it's a big sort of part of our, of, of our farming year. And, and definitely sort of, you know, there's some fire brigade stuff there.
And again, it goes back to that sort of carving, sit down. If if we can try and feed that in, so we had a, have a sit down and say, right, you know, you had a big problem with Avail this year, let's look at the, sort of, you know, kind of what went right, what went wrong, and, and, and try and make some, put some plans in place for, for next year. And and yeah, castration or, you know, discipling or dehorning and this is just, it's worth remembering this.
I think this is red tractor, the organic associations are . definitely sort of taking note more in terms of, of, you know, are we doing everything we can to prevent having to, to, do one of these permitted procedures? Are, are we doing everything we can to not have to castrate, calves?
And if we are, are we doing it in the, sort of most, you know, in the, in terms of the best welfare way and . And same with disbudding and dehorning and there's and there's good practise as well kind of teaching farmers to to, to, to dispod properly and to use local and and, and use local anaesthetic and inject it well. And that goes back to that knowledge transfer and that education and making sure that stockmen and and it's not just .
practise for, you know, kind of dairy, dairy guys to get right, you know, it's important that be, these guys get, get it right as well. And, and again, is there something we can do, you know, in terms of, of, AI with a polled bull, or, or switching to a breed that's polled. And, and again, anything, anything we do to, to, to reduce the need and where it is needed, that these procedures are carried out in the best way, whether, this is, ringing of calves under 7 days old by the farmer or whether this is a vet to, surgically castrate, calves later on, it's, it's worth.
Familiarise yourself with the ins and outs of the mutilations regulation 2007. It's gonna be something that and on the sheep sector as well, it's something that's gonna be more and more prominent in terms of us trying to find a way to to. Get around it, sort of, you know, kind of, find alternative ways.
So yeah, growth rates really important part of the calf, and, and, and how well these calves are growing, at foot. And so, poor question then. So, wake you all up again.
What is the ideal daily live weight gain for calves in their first grazing season? Is it 50 grammes per day, 250 grammes per day, 500 grammes per day, 1 kg a day, 2 kg a day. OK, good, and keen on the voting again.
We have got a clear winner coming through, but we still have a few left to vote. We're nearly there. Now give me just a couple more seconds.
OK, gonna end polling there. So again, a clear winner, we've got 54% of the vote with D 1 kilogramme a day, 32% with C 5 500 grammes, then we've got 9% with 250 and 5% with 2 kg a day and None for A. So de a clear winner again.
Yeah, spot on. So yeah, 0.8 to 1.2 kg a day is the, is what you're aiming for in terms of daily life gatewaying for these calves in their first grazing season on, on milk and grass.
So, yeah, well done, absolutely spot on. So, So yeah, so we've, we've got these calves. They've grown well all summer.
They've been on their mother's milk and they've been on and, and a big part of their life and a big part of the, of the life that the, vets need to get involved with is housing and weaning. However, that, whether housing comes first and or, or weaning or housing and weaning together, sort of fitting into that farm system, what the best, the best way to do it is. And areas that the vet can get involved in is shed audits.
And so having a look at the, the sheds in terms of ventilation, and water trough as well, you know, how, is this water trough being cleaned out and ready to go again for, for calves coming in. And to their first winter. And a BVD check test as well.
You know, cows 9 to 18 months old, that have been homebred, checking them for BVD antibody to, to check whether there's BVD on the farm. And then any pre-housing treatments, pneumonia vaccine, other vaccines like Clostridial vaccines, worming, fluke, lice, all of, all of those, potentially, sort of having a written protocol and a written health plan. So this is, this is a fantastic resource.
So this is what Alix now ADDB and and it's available to download online and it it's quite long, it's quite a a chunky information pack, but this is better. Housing design, and it's by a fantastic guy called Jamie Robertson, along with Mary because if you put Jamie Robertson into YouTube, there's some quite good videos about ventilation by, by Jamie as well. But this is a fantastic, very complex, resource for, for being able to do ventilation calculations.
So this is great to be able to go out on a farm and, and, potentially do a smoke bomb. Have a look at where the ventilation is going, especially with, with the cattle in the housing and and humidity and such and and, and all of that, and all of that that plays a role in terms of potential pneumonia risk in these calves. So a really good resource to go and have a look, a look at.
And and so weaning as well, probably the one of if not the most stressful, part of a a calf's life. Is is weaning and and it's really good to have a protocol in place. And, and try and minimise that stress as much as possible.
And, I, you know, I've already mentioned pneumonia vaccines, potential treatments, is a fluke on the farm? Do they need a wormer housing? Cause worming housing is a really good opportunity to clear any worms out for the winter, but also worm, potentially lung worm can have a role in pneumonia outbreaks.
And then diet as well, getting the diet right and separation anxiety as well as another one in terms of, of the sort of the, the stress that that causes and the raised cortisol levels in terms of actually splitting them off from their mother. And is there anything we can do to minimise that? So can we, potentially, wean cows and calves at either end of a shed, so they can still, they can, they can't feed, but they can, they can still talk to each other and and mother can groom them and everything, and they can still see each other.
And so that's kind of a phased weaning. Potentially put the anti-suckling devices in their noses, so leave them with their mothers, but they, they've got a, you stop them feeding milk, so they're having to switch their diet to, to forage, but they're still sort of there to be groomed and, and, and still running with their mothers. So anything to, to, to, to phase out, to phase weaning, so it isn't just one big hit of weaning and housing.
And then again, housing, can we house these cows and calves together initially and then wean them later? Can we wean them initially and and, and have them outside, but have we got secure in a field and then bring them in later? And again, I've mentioned the BVD check test again as well, getting that done.
And I think one of the most important thing, the most important stresses with weaning is diet. And this, and nutrition isn't my strong point at all, and I really struggle with calculations and such, but, we do have someone in the practise that is really good at it, and, and so we can offer that as a service if you like. And, and, and anyone whose minds, you know, kind of lend well to this nutrition stuff, it's, it's, it's really good.
Dairy guys are really hot at having a nutritionist on the farm and involved and, and really tweaking and getting feeding right and, and, and beef are a little bit behind, I think, but if you think about that sort of pre-weaning, the calf's on, what's it on, it's on milk and grass. And it's eating about 7 kg of dry matter a day. And it's drinking about 6 litres of milk a day.
And that's 6 litres of milk is 1.2% of dry matter, of which 20%, more than a quarter of that is really good, top quality protein. And then autumn grass is really good, you know, that autumn flush of grass is 20% protein.
So these calves are getting a a huge amount of really good quality protein. And then we, we suddenly Potentially suddenly took them in a in a shed on some really average, grass-based silage that's sort of what, 10, 12% protein at best, and, and so it's kind of, it's really getting that right. And and, and.
Well, you know, one example would be to start creek feeding the calves out in the field, to get, get, get them onto some starch, and, and get them, and, and just get them sort of tickling a bit of, tickling with a bit of starch, barley, and just get in the room and prepared. And silage feeding. What's really interesting is, silage, eating a silage is a learned behaviour.
And, and, and, and calves. They, they, they, they, they, they don't naturally look at it and think, oh, that's a food source. They often learn to eat silage and they learn from their mums and, and so potentially, leaving a bale of silage out to the field before weaning and, and teaching these calves that, that, that, you know, silage is for eating and getting them going and getting them eating, and, and so that, that diet change is less of a, a shock to them.
But it is all about protein with with winged calves and And and it's, it's kind of again, you know, kind of. Offering that nutrition advice, you know, farmers at the, sort of end of the winter are really disappointed that their calves have stood still and haven't grown, but then you ask, what, what have you been feeding and say, oh well, they've had silage and grass silage, yeah, grass silage. Have you had it analysed?
No, you know, and so, you know, they, they expect these calves to work miracles on a food source that that is very low in protein. And very, very different to, to what they were on pre-weaning. So again, another big part of, of sort of farmer education and getting involved with the nutrition side, and especially on the calf, in, in, within the calf year, getting that, that diet change right.
And in terms of pneumonia outbreaks, it's, it's all about disease balance. So it's, it's infection pressure, immunity and stresses. It's so it's sort of like a triangle in a way, that, that's built up of these, the, the level of infection pressure, where their immunity is and, and the stresses.
And, and what will tip the balance in terms of stresses? And, and what are stresses? Stresses, you know, parasites, lung worm, gut worms, fluke, you know, viruses, to your, RSV virus, BVD, IBR, PI3, all of those pneumonia viruses, bacteria, so pastureella, the immune status of the car.
Separation anxieties, all these changes, these massive changes that are going on with this calf, and nutrition, and environment and, and so far, so, so in terms of the vets, you know, reducing these stresses, you know, let's get our parasites, you know, talk to our, our farmers and get the parasite treatments right, you know, get a, a lung worm treatment in at the right time. Pneumonia vaccine, let's get some immunity, to these, to these viruses and, and potentially bacteria as well. And immune status as well.
So have we got BVD rip roaring through the, the herd and also what's the, what's the environment like? What's the shared like, you know, is there good ventilation? Is it, is it, is it too humid?
Is there not enough airflow and separation anxiety? Have we literally just take these calves? Of the cow and chuck them in a shed.
Can we, you know, talk to the farmers about, staged weaning and then nutrition as well, you know, getting that, that post-weaned calf nutrition right. And, and all of, and all of that is, is, you know, there's a role for, for vets in reducing all of these stresses there. And and then a big part of of hopefully there isn't any pneumonia investigations, but potentially a big part of pneumonia outbreaks would be if, if you're going out to, to see a sick calf with pneumonia.
The, the, the, the second job after having a look at that calf is having a look at the rest of the shed because this is this a pneumonia outbreak that's going through everything. Have we got more than, 20% of, of calves with a high temperature, you know, do we need to potentially look at blanket, treatment? Do we need to look at potentially take sampling and, and having a lot.
So I think with any pneumonia outbreak, the question is always, what can we do next year to prevent this? You know, what has been the stressor and what can we as vets help the farmer to do and put in place and make a, make changes ready for next year to, to to prevent this. So if he's, weaned them all on a wet, miserable day and he's dumped them in a, dumped them in a shed on some fairly mediocre silage that they never seen before, they're not worms, he's got rip roaring BVD, running around the.
Running around the hood and, and the, and, and the stresses are there, then potentially cause, can cause, a nasty pneumonia outbreak. And there's, there's, there's things we can do and put in place ready for, Ready for next year to, to present, to, to prevent that. And so, in summary, that's, that's me, just, sort of wrap wrapping up now.
So the vet involvement in the beef year, it's not all about caesareans, you know, and we've kind of covered, we'll go back to that initial slide. All these areas that that we can we can get involved with and and and, and, and points in that beef farming year, in that cycle that, that, that vets can go in and, and get involved and, and make a difference and I think the, the, the selection. And potentially the PD and the big ones and, and farms we're very lucky up here that we, we have very low TB incident, but potentially, farms down south that have, sort of annual TB tests and.
Then far then, you know, vets are potentially on the farm even more often, so even more of a good opportunity to, to get involved in these parts of the of the of the beef year and, and, and try and make make improvements and . And I'll mention to go back again to that original, you know, kind of, kilos of calf weaned per cow put to the bull. That's the ultimate calculation that feeds in.
A lot of, you know, a lot of the sort of what's going on in terms of, of disease and vaccinations and conception and how, how early in the calving pattern they were, they were conceived and, and, and how, how easy their carving was and And and and whether there's calving problems, all of that goes into that, that sort of weaning weight and, and again, it's another really good thing to try and encourage farmers to to, to weigh their calves and, and, and know what their their weaning weights are and compare and year on year. A really, a really good, important, way that vets can get involved, and we have a set of we scales that will fit into any at the bottom of any sort of crush or stocks, that, that we lend out to farmers to try and encourage them to, to weigh their calves to see what, how they're doing in terms of, of weaning weight. And so, yeah, lots of ways that, that, that vets can, can get involved in the, in the beef, in the beef year and, and, and, and potentially hopefully make a, make a difference.
And and that's us, that's me, the end and just a little plug for Obviously not at the moment, but when things get back to a bit more normality and, and, and students sort of EMS is resumed, if anyone wants to come and join us on one of our, beef and sheep farm externships, then go to our website, and, and have a look at how to apply for one of our externships. Usually runs for 3 months in the spring and 3 months in the autumn. And, and come and see some, beef and sheep, practise in, beautiful, Northumberland.
And that's it. Thank, thank you. Thank you for, thank you for listening and I'll hand over to, Sarah, to just talk about the next clinical club.
Yeah, we're gonna. Yep, brilliant. Thank you so much, Jenny.
That was a really, really great presentation and a, a really good, indication there of just how much that we can do, for beef farmers, and I, I'm sure that everybody listening found it useful. We've got loads of times for questions, so we've already had some questions coming in, but please keep them coming in. We will make sure that they get answered, as we go through the Q&A session now.
Before we go for questions for anybody that has to pop off, and could I just ask you, just to spend 30 seconds completing the feedback survey, it will have popped up in a new tab in your browser, depending on what, type of, computer you're using to watch this webinar, it sometimes doesn't always present itself, so you may just have to have a a look through. But if you can't find it and you want to give us some feedback, you can either email office at the webinar vet.com or you can get in touch with us at at BCVA as well.
If you're listening to recording this webinar, again, you can add your comments underneath. It's really, really important. We get your feedback.
We're only on our 3rd, virtual clinical club. We want to know whether you think we should carry on with these, what sort of things you want us to, to be covering, too. So, all of the feedback helps us to develop the programme to best suit you.
So please just spare spare us that time. So keep those questions coming in. We've got a few for you, Jenny, here.
So I'm just gonna crack on with our first question. So, first of all, A question about bulls and culling, what determines when a bull will be culled? Is it purely a fall in fertility when the bull is in good health otherwise, or do sometimes farmers use use subfertile bulls for other reasons?
OK, so what, what criteria determines bulling? So, culling, so, often the, the main, reason tends to be, feet and so bulls that go lame and, and age as well, and, and, older bulls tend to be bulls over sort of six year old tend to be less fertile. And, and, and older bulls tend to be sort of very heavy, often, potentially too heavy for small heifers and and tend to be slow on their feet and slow to get about and, and so the probably I would say the most.
Maybe a little bit breed dependent, but I would say the most common reason for culling bulls would be, lameness, and so that would be, sand cracks and, two granulomas, arthritis, back problems, potentially sacroilia, joint issues, maybe hock arthritis. That'll probably be the most. Common.
And after that, probably age, and that potential dip in fertility. And then fertility is potentially a big, plays a big part. We never or rarely ever fail on, on a single semen test.
We often try and semen test them six weeks later. In case they've had a knock to their facility, which will, knock them and, and, mean that they might be recovering later on. But, certainly sort of, Fertility issues would, would be up there in terms of the, the reason.
So it could be that they've had very often we find epidmitis and and that sort of infection and heat in the epididymis on one side is sort of cooked and, and, and he. Damage the testicle on the other side, potentially. Other reasons might be, sort of, penile injuries, developed a corkscrew penis or, or, something like that.
So yeah, age and, age and feet will be sort of top of my list. Yeah, I'd absolutely agree with you there on feet, having spent an abnormal amount of time in abattoirs collecting feet, most of the bulls that come through will have some problems, problems on their feet. And so that's why Jenny said at the pre-breeding examination, really important to check their feet, because it can take quite a long time to, to put them right.
Just the second half of that question, Jenny, was, do farmers ever use sub subfertile bulls for other reasons? Would they ever keep them in the herd for any other reason? Probably genetic merit, I would say the old bulls that I, that I know about that are, sort of I can think of a, a pedigree bull that is 12 year old, that's quite slow, probably can't, whenever we test him, we probably say, you know, just because of his, because of his feet and his legs.
Don't serve any more than a dozen cows with him, but he's the last of his line and he's a tremendously good of high genetic value. And so he gets kept in the, he kept gets kept in the the herd for that reason. interestingly enough, we've actually just collected semen off him and put some semen in the tank in case he, he's no longer with us in the future, just because he's such a, such high genetic merit.
The other main reason that people keep subfertile bulls that they shouldn't be is because they aren't testing and they don't know that they're subfertile. And so they might be using a ball and swapping the balls around and, and aren't realising that when all the calves, when all the cows calve a year later, cycle behind just because they've got a a sub fertile bull running around it. That's probably the most common reason.
And then, After that, I can't really think of any other reasons. OK, brilliant. Thank you for such a thorough answer.
Going on to our second question then, around halfway through the presentation, you talked about teat sealant. So the question is, why just use teat sealant on autumn carving cows? Why wouldn't you do it at all cows that dry off?
Oh, good question. Yes. So, it's about risk.
So if you're a calving herd, and you're carving sort of February to May. And then you're weaning calves from sort of October to Christmas. It's a, it's a question of risk.
So the risk of getting mastitis after weaning in house cattle in the back end where there's no flies around is, is much, much lower. So we rarely see it as a, sort of dry period mastitis as it. Whereas autumn carving herds, they're gonna carve August to November, and then we're gonna weed calves in the summer, say June, July, August, ready for calving again, and you find that the dry cows in the summer with a high flood pressure, are at much, much greater risk.
Of, of, developing some mastitis because of the fly spread at that time of year. Whereas back end of the year, house cattle, there's the fly pressure is much reduced. And, and so you don't need to, there, there will be exceptions to that, you know, there will be certain farming systems and And certain, farms that have, say, you know, particularly nasty mastitis, bugs endemic within the herd that, that, that may require it, but usually dry cow tubes or sealants are, are, sort of more important in those, autumn carving herds.
We do have a number of autumn carving herds that actually they don't wean the calves until they start carving again. And it's a balance between reducing the risk of some mastitis and having some good quality colostrum there for the next calf that's calving. But the biggest single biggest way to influence cow condition in beef cows is, when you wean the calf.
So how that milk production takes a huge amount of, of energy, and we talk about, cows milking off their backs. So they, in order to produce, if they aren't getting a lot of feed, in order to produce milk, having to use, body reserves. And so, so autumn, the risk, there's always a risk of, of autumn carving cows getting too fat over the summer on best summer grass.
And so leaving a calf on last year's calf on and, and producing milk, can, is the biggest way of affecting, body condition. And therefore leaving those calves on right almost until you start carving again. Is one way of reducing mastitis, reducing body condition, but it's balanced with not having some good quality cluster ready for the next car.
So yeah. Brilliant. I imagine, teat stealing a, a suckler cow is, is pretty challenging compared to a dairy cow as well, so yeah, absolutely, yeah, you risk losing your teeth.
OK, so moving on then, we've still got loads of questions coming in, but, but keep them coming in, we will try to get through them all. Are there commonly accepted ways to try and reduce anxiety at weaning if you're doing abrupt weaning? They come in ways.
I think probably if you're doing abrupt weaning, having cows at one side of the shed and calves at the other side of the shed so that they can see each other and hear each other, but not suckle is probably the, the, the best way of, of, of abrupt weaning and some farmers will do it with Just a hot wire. So, electric, strand of electric wire, two strands of electric wire across, or maybe more, actually, across the, shed. And so these, so the calves can't suckle, but they can, they can, they can still sort of see, see each other and that's, that's one way of, of, of trying to do it.
The only downside to that is the, is the noise. I think they probably, they probably shout for longer if there's sort of there's cows at one side, egging the cows on at the other. But it does, it does help.
It's, there's no easy, There's no easy way I think. Maybe the other thing is getting the nutrition right in terms of creep feeding the calves and silage, so they know where the silage is and they know where to, so they aren't, you know, kind of missing their mums and starving hungry because they haven't got onto that new food source. So if they've been creep feeding.
And, and having, a bit of starch before they get weaned, then that, that switch when suddenly there's no milk left, that they can, they can quickly, quickly switch and, and fill their, fill their bellies with, with a food sauce, that, that will probably help. It's a case of just trying what works in the system, trying your best to reduce that stress as much as possible. I mean, we've got, we've got a lot of hill farms up here which simply don't have winter housing or sort of, you know, kind of wintering for calves, so they literally get weaned onto a wagon into the sales, which is not ideal, but they come off the hill and go on a wagon straight away and that's it.
And that's probably the worst way, but there is a scheme called the sure calf scheme. Which, means that calves are vaccinated for pneumonia before they hit the sales, which kind of helps reduce that risk. Again, the horses cause, you know, different farming systems require different, different things, but I've seen the anti-suckling devices work really well.
And, I've seen the sort of gate down the middle of the shed, and I've seen putting the, calves in the shed and leaving the cows outside the shed work really well as well. So yeah, it's, it's a case of trying, trying your best with what works with the system to, to reduce all the all the stresses all at once. And I suppose monitoring the impact of weaning as well, and if it's too excessive, that tells you that what you're doing probably isn't, isn't reducing that anxiety enough, maybe.
Yeah, absolutely. I think if you're, if you're weighing pre and post, pre, pre-weaning and 6 weeks post-weaning, and they're actually weighing less 6 weeks after leading, weaning than what they did, you know, by that time, I would expect them, they'll all lose a little bit of weight, but you'd expect them to have sort of kind of stabilised and then got going again. If the stress isn't too much.
OK. Right, we'll move on to the next question because we've got, we've got the mounting up, Jenny. So.
Right. With a struggling beef trade at the moment, do you find it challenging to encourage farmers to get the vet involved, or are most of your clients quite forward thinking? I think I'm probably, I'm very lucky in the practise that we have.
We've developed, we've naturally attracted very forward-thinking farmers that, that are keen to work with us, and have worked with us for, for a few years. So, I think, . I think I'm very lucky in that respect, but I think our farmers have had a lot of years of us nagging here.
We're very proactive, like we'll do, like our semen testing list has just gone around. So we sort of, we email around a list all the farms with spring carving herds, and we tick off the bulls as we've done, and anyone who, who's on. That list and hasn't had their ball semen tested yet, we tend to ring them up and bother them and go and, and do stuff.
So it's a case of being very proactive and, and dairy, dairy farmers are more like, you know, that you're there potentially at fortnightly or monthly routine. So you're on farm a lot easier. But beef farms, you do have to, kind of fight your way on if you like.
And the other side of the beef trade is the fact that it's It's quite extended, you know, these guys are, there's so many different systems in terms of you know, cow calf, store cattle, finishing cattle, finishers, and, and guys that go right through from calving calves to, their own calves right through to selling fattened cows off the farm. And I think the, the beef year is quite the beef production cycle is quite long, you know, we're looking at 18 to 24 months, so. The dips up and down are quite protracted, .
So a dip now will be affecting those guys that are selling fat cattle now, but those guys that have young cattle, young stock on the farm aren't going to be selling to the autumn. So it's, it's, it, it's quite, knock-ons are quite delayed if you like. OK.
Just, just leading on, you're saying that now you're, sending out reminders about bull testing for your spring carvers. So how, this quick question here, how soon before you let the bull into the cows would you perform your bull fertility testing? So, when do you send out your reminders?
Ideally 6 weeks prior. So, but often you can't often, the idea of 6 weeks prior is that that if you have a, a bull that that fails his semen test, you've got 6 weeks to, retest him, potentially retest him a couple of times and potentially replace him as well, or sort of go in and use, AI on a batch of cows potentially, or, or go and buy another bull. So you plenty of time.
That is the ideal. We don't, we don't always hit that. And I have been testing bulls quite often that we test him in the morning and he's going out with the cow this afternoon, providing that he's passed his semen test.
So, ideally 6 weeks. But for us, there'll be a lot of people still calving and kilts, still lambing at that point. So we end up having to sort of, you know, fit it in and that, that break that gap between sort of lambing, finishing, and, and, and getting ready for the balls going out.
Brilliant. OK, I'm just gonna try and group together, a couple of these questions here. So, question about yonis.
Do you see a lot of it in, in suckler herds? Is it as big a problem compared to dairy? Whereas in dairy, we tend to look towards eradication or more sort of monitored, free, what's, what sort of position in, in beef suckler herds?
Oh, wow. It's a very good question. I think the biggest problem in beef suckler herds was that it, their status is unknown.
So the national, Yoni's Management plan at the moment only applies to, the dairy sector, and that's largely because it's been rolled out, the, produce the, the milk buyers have, And they buying contracts have asked that that Yoni's management on on dairy farms has been put in place and that's really what's driven it. That isn't the case on the beef side. So I think it's massively underdiagnosed and I think there'll be a lot of farms that, that have yoni.
And don't know about it. And, I think it is, it is probably, a big, a, a, a big, a bigger problem than we know about. I don't actually know what the figures will be in terms of, but, you know, there'll be a figure in terms of percentage of farms that are testing for it, and a part of some, say the SAC Primal health, you know, checks accredited scheme.
But it's, it's probably We don't do enough about it. I think, I think in my opinion, I think every every farm should should be doing something about their yearnings and preferably joining a checks health scheme and actually be sort of, you know, credited free. On beef farms, the simple answer is we call those animals and anyone related to them.
I think the, the dairy sector seems to be more like, sort of sap calving, snatch and grab calving, and, and, keeping cows until they go clinical, whereas on a bee farm, you just want them cold and out of the way as soon as possible. You definitely don't want them in your calving shed. splattering, Yoni's bugs everywhere.
I think my personal opinion will be that Yi's has the potential to be the next public health scare. And it's something that we should be, you know, we should be doing, more about in terms of, of, of sort of monitoring it on beef farms. Yeah, and I think possibly the new animal health pathway that's being introduced in England is probably going to start looking at these sorts of things, isn't it?
I've got just a couple of quick, again, we've got loads of questions to get through, so I'm gonna just do a couple of quick, target questions. What's your target for calves weaned to cows, put to the bull, or is it farm dependent? The target is 100%.
But, I think there's some really interesting, work that was presented at BCVA Congress the last two years by Tim Geraghty from SAC that showed that on the farms that they, looked at, I think it was 82%, so 82% calves reared per cows put to the boat, and that fed into that was, empty cows, dead calves, calves that died between, at birth, and then calves that. Between birth and weaning. And it was, it was 82% was the average amongst those farms.
You're aiming for 100%. The average is 82. I suspect they're really bad.
I seem to recall the the the really bad farms or the really disappointing farms in that study were sort of down to 70% and they'd had a nasty scour outbreak. And, you know, was up to, I think one farm, small farm about 100%. So, it's, it's averaging 82.
But you're aiming for 100%, really. And some farms are achieving that, so it's a, it's a good target to aim for and not an unachievable one. Would you agree?
Yeah. Yeah. .
Yeah, I wouldn't say I'd, I'd say it's very difficult to achieve because that would mean for every 100 cows, every cow would have to be in calf. Every calf must have to be born alive. And no calves must die and so every calf must be still alive at weaning.
And so I think, I think it, I think it be hard pressed to achieve that. I think the difference there, the farms that were hitting 100% were farms that had high numbers of twins, and that was the twins bumped up the figures. And I think there was, there was one particular farm in that study that had 18% twins.
It was a Simmental, farm that, that, so the twin twins pushed up the numbers, basically. OK, OK. So I'm gonna just try and amalgamate some further questions just so we can try and get to everybody's question here.
So. A question related to to beef vetting. This isn't a daft question at all, to the person who's asked this, who has said it's possibly a daft question, it isn't.
But do you have dairy vets and beef vets, or do you have people who do a bit of both? And also, if you're a beef vet, say that they've spoke to lots of vets who rarely see some beef clients, similar to sheep farmers, how do you s how do you get them to engage? So, firstly, do we have separate beef vets, dairy vet, dairy vets, beef vets, or do most people do a bit of different?
Well, I think we've got a dairy vet on this side, and Jenny's a, a beef vet. So, yeah. I think it's just, it's probably quite region dependent.
We're in Northumland, and I think, we don't have any, dairies now, and, we are all, we are all beef and especially you get up into Scotland. Again, there'll be areas in in Scotland where they're all you know, nearly 100% beef and there's just no dairy farms around, . And equally you'll get down into sort of South Wales and the southwest where there'll be, there'll be dairy vets that are, that, that just do mainly dairy work.
I think the, I think traditionally it's been more the dairy side, I think. The beef, the, the beef sides had less engagement and I think you have to go, you have to go chasing the beef work. You have to go knocking on doors and phoning, farmers and cajoling them.
So I think it's maybe not as easy as, as, as potentially getting on to farm if you have a regular monthly routine, etc. What was the second part of the question? So how do you get them to engage?
So obviously you've got a really, you know, got a group of engaged clients, but how do you, what tips have you got to those who are interested in beef work, who are looking to go out into practise and try and build up the beef side? What? What tips have you got for them?
I think just keep, keep bothering farmers, you know, keep showing that you're interested, keep bringing them up and offering, you know, kind of right, have we PD your cows, right, have we seen and tested your bull, right, have we done trace element testing? Just keep, you know, and, and when you do get knocked back, you just keep having another go next time, I think, and, and just trying to get them engaged and get them interested. Farmers' meetings, beef benchmarking groups, following up on, you know, then sort of, you know, kind of, doing a post calving breakdown and sitting down with them and looking through the figures and saying, right, you know, kind of.
You had a huge amount of naval a or you know, we had a lot of caesareans and, and, and sitting down and, and trying to put something in place for, for next time. And I think that the biggest teller is the farms that you've gone in and you've made a difference and the scene that you're really keen and that you've, you've you've, you have, you know, the advice that you've given and the stuff that we've put in place has has really . Has really sort of improved their sort of farming and their quality of life potentially in terms of, of helping them buy an easy calving wool, for instance, you know, our farms really appreciate us and it's a long job, but sitting and going through the, we sit and go through, we usually div divvy up between two vets that we take half each and we go through the sale catalogue for, you know, we know the upcoming, sort of, you know, kind of sim and to, bull sale at Carlisle's coming up.
They'll bring the catalogue in. And we'll divvy it up, and we tend to have a, a cross and a tick or a 2 or 3 tick ball. So a really good, ball based on figures will have 3 kicks next to it.
And, and just offering to do stuff like that and, and, taking the ball's tag number and, and having a look at their figures online and, and, and just, yeah, constantly engaging, you know, I will, I'll spend an afternoon just ringing farmers trying to encourage them to do stuff, . And, and be keen as well, definitely, you know, they like the fact that you show an interest. And don't give up.
If you, if you're not interested the first time, I reckon you have to talk to them about something at least 7 to 8 times, before you can get them, get them engaged sometimes. But don't give up, keep persevering. So, practical question here about, disbudding and castration.
If, say, for instance, you haven't got a tight, calving pattern, what's your preference? Would you, wait to, to knock out the calves when they're a bit bigger and do them all en masse, castrations and disbudding? Or do you prefer them to do them at a set time and, and do a few at a time?
I, depending whether we're going out to do them or, or the farmers doing them, ideally, I think younger the better, which in terms of welfare, I think the younger the better, and also growth rates as well. The, the, you will always check a growth rate by castrating and, and disbudding calves, and the older they are, the bigger the check. And I think, if my preference.
It is for a ringing of calves less than 7 days old. That's what's within the law. And, and, and disputing under local anaesthetic rather than castrating at weaning and, and, and dehorning potentially.
It's another stress that at that time of year when they're sort of, you know, weaned or about to be, or just weaned and housed, etc. My preference is for, for them to be done. Much, much younger.
But yeah, I definitely get the where the, the person asking the questions is going with this in terms of, yeah, lots of little cars, but The problem with spring carving herds is you get into fly season. So if you, if you're getting into the end of June, coming up where we are now, and these calves haven't been, castrated and, and dissipated, then, you're going to run into difficulty with fly bothering in, which case these calves need to be left until the back end and done with the back end. Brilliant.
Lots of considerations then. Just we finish up with just two questions now. We, we haven't got a chance to answer everybody's questions.
It's fantastic we've had so many questions in. But what we will do is we will make sure that Jenny, answers these afterwards, and we will circulate the answers so that your questions have been answered. .
Through this webinar. So just, last but one question. Pelvic, so heifer, heifer pelvic area, below which figure would you be concerned that a heifer is not suitable for breeding, or is this breed a pairable, variable?
If so, where can we find out more information on this? -huh. What a fantastic question.
Well, it just so happens there is a fantastic, webinar, a historical, BCVA webinar on webinar vet, by myself on, pelvic measuring. So, it was, oh wait, no, that was the EBV one. No, I, no, it was the it'll be in the congress, .
papers from previously about pelvic heifer measuring. So there's, there's some figures, and published figures, the work's been done in America. And the, we know that the, from 12 to 24 months, the heifer's pelvis grows at a regular rate of 10 centimetres a month.
And so we, we from that and we know that at 12 months of age that there needs to be a minimum of 140 centimetres area. And so, we can work out from 12 to 24 months what the minimum area should be, based on that 140 centimetres at, at 12 months and, and, and, growing by 10 centimetres a month. And so there's a, there's sort of minimum levels.
What we tend on farms is that there's outliers, so you'll have, you'll do a batch of heifers and the majority of them will be nice big roomy, pelvises and then there'll be one or two that, that are, are really abnormally narrow and and very small. And they're the ones that, that need pulling out. But there's, there's a lot of American papers, sort of on, on this, figure and looking at it, but, it's in the, what we'll do, what we'll do, Jenny, is we'll make sure that we find that, and we'll post it on our, on our student page.
And we'll, we'll attach it to the, the Q&As, that we send round after this so everybody can, can find it. Now we are just a minute away from 9 o'clock, so we are just gonna wrap up with just one very quick, fact or fiction question for you. In the Farmer's Guardian recently there was an article on pushing up silage in the evening rather than the morning, in the close run up to calving to reduce the number of cows calving in the night.
Is this fact or fiction? So yeah, so this is true. This is true.
So it's work that's been done in America. That shows that if you, if you feed cows at 10 p.m.
At night, they are, the 83% of them will calve in daylight hours from 7 a.m. To 7 a.m.
Something like 7 a.m. To 5 p.m.
Or something. Whereas if you feed them in the morning, then something like 43% of them will carve at night and the rest will carve in the day. So, so yeah, so feeding the main feed of the day at 10 p.m.
So, so that they're, they're eating overnight, leads to 83% of them. Carving, during the day. So, yeah, this is, this is published work.
This is, there's definitely two papers out there that I've seen. And so, yeah, it is fact. I've got a couple of farms that do it.
It works. So one farm I can think of has gates and feed passages. So they put all the silage out in the, you know, in the daytime.
And then at 10 o'clock, just before bedtime, they Go and open all the gates and let the cattle onto the feed passage. And so that works really well. But I think the problem is, most farmers don't want to be feeding cattle at 10 o'clock at night, if they can help it.
And, and so it's not widely used. If anything, with my farms, I think they've, there's been a change towards, using easier calving bulls, whether that's breeds or better estimated breeding values. And, and, and, and, and reducing calving difficulties rather than sort of more moving towards carving them during the day.
But, but yes, absolutely, fact, there is definitely some papers out there, that shows that this works. And I think it works just, I think it works as well with sheep as well. I, I have a feeling it, it's, it's the same with sheep.
Yeah, I don't think anybody would want to carve or lamb on a full stomach. I think that's it. No, well, yeah, I think that's, it's so much to do with they'll, they'll spend the evening, early part of the evening eating and then sort of go, lie down and ruminate and at that point then decide to, to think about carving, I think.
Either that or they go stuff themselves full. And, and then sort of run out of room if they've got a heavy calf inside them, that sort of, starts off the, the process, perhaps, that, that stress, that, that steroids, cortisol that the calf, foetus starts to, . Starts to release.
I don't actually know the mechanism behind it. I can't, I, I, I, I don't know whether they have worked out what exactly is happening, but I do presume it is they're going and stuffing themselves in the early part of the evening, so I can't be bothered to, to start carving them. Yeah, it'll be something due to, to hormones and glucose and, and, and things like that that doesn't, doesn't trigger off that, that part pathway.
Right, we're gonna have to bring it to a close there. We're, we're a little bit over as it is. So, but don't worry, those of you, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that we haven't got to your questions, but we will make sure that they are answered and that you get the answers to those. But I just want to say a huge thanks to Jenny for giving up, her time tonight to take us through a really, really comprehensive look at the, the vet year for the beef suckler herd. We have got our next clinical club with Sarah Gibbs from the board, on the 27th of July, when she'll be talking about young stock.
So, please sign up and, and join us for that. Also, as part of our free student membership at the moment, you can tune into our normal webinars. So we've got another one next Tuesday night with Phil Elkins on transition management.
In the meantime, we have also launched this weekend a BCVA students only Facebook page, which is gonna be the hub for all of our BC. CVA student activities. So please give us a like, join us on, on that.
If you've got any problems trying to find that, then, please contact your student rep in your uni. They've, this is their, their Facebook page has been their idea. They've been absolutely fantastic at generating, ideas for our students.
So anyway, I won, won't keep you any longer, so I just wanna say thanks to, to Jenny again, thanks for all of you who have attended tonight, joined in the polls and asked questions, and we hope to see you very soon. So good night and take care everybody.
