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Have a look around your fields before you turn stock out, you never know you might find.

Salmonella Dublin is a bacterium which more often causes disease in dairy herds than beef herds.  However, buying in calves to twin on or rear, or buying beef x dairy replacement heifers can all be sources of risk to the beef herd.

Our advice is by purchasing from herds with risk level 1 for Johne’s disease you have the lowest risk of buying a Johne’s disease infected animal.  The risk increases step wise for herds at levels 2, 3 and 4. 

In December Jamie N. Henningson of Kansas State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory published a useful note in ‘Bovine Veterinarian’ on cases of apparent overfeeding of minerals.  His general observations are equally relevant to UK livestock farmers.

On a recent farm visit the subject of moving cattle on store diets based on silage onto ad-lib cereals without causing acidosis and other issues was discussed.

My interest in drinking water follows on from the increased level of pneumonia this autumn, presumably due to the wide fluctuations in temperature. 

Changing the time of feeding has been shown to have an effect on the time of day cows will calve.

While pneumonia is a common occurrence, there are steps which can be taken to minimise the risk.

Milk fever is the common term used for the signs seen in cattle when blood calcium levels are low, also known as hypocalcaemia. 

Timing of lungworm can be unpredictable so it is difficult to know when to target worming treatments.  If outbreaks are not caught early, significant lung damage and secondary bacterial infection can occur and deaths are not uncommon.