Ribble Farm Vets

Are you looking to tighten your lambing season?

A teaser is a vasectomised ram – he will do everything that an entire ram does but will fire blanks. Proper use of a teaser can advance the breeding season by a fortnight as well as synchronising ewes to result in a more compact lambing period.

Ideally 7 weeks (minimum 4 weeks) should be allowed between operation and use to ensure infertility. Teasers need to go in 2 weeks before the real rams, i.e. 5 ½ months before you would like to start lambing. Therefore, the teaser operation must be done at least 9 weeks before tupping.

To book in or for further information please contact the farm team on 01772 746393
🐑🐑🐑

🐄 Left Displaced Abomasum (LDA)

An LDA is a common post-calving challenge where the abomasum moves out of its normal position and becomes trapped on the left side of the cow’s abdomen.

Commonly this is caused by an increase in space in the abdomen, either post calving or due to reduced feed intake. However other factors can contribute such as hypocalcaemia, ketosis, abrupt diet change, and concurrent disease such as mastitis.

🔎 Signs to watch for:�• Reduced feed intake�• Drop in milk production�• Dullness or reduced activity�• Decreased manure output�
Early detection and treatment can make a big difference for cow health, recovery, and future performance.

What is Pelvic Scoring?📏

Pelvic scoring is use of a pelvimeter to assess size of a pelvis in a heifer, to help with breeding decision making.

The measuring device is used internally to get values for height and width of the pelvis, which are multiplied to produce a score, and assessed based on various factors including breed and age.

This can help with decision making in heifers pre breeding, whether to breed or not, or what breed to put them to.

It can be particularly helpful to reduce incidence of calving difficulties, helping to potentially prevent stressful veterinary interventions at calving.

Speak to our team if you would like to discuss pelvic scoring of heifers.

🦷 Quidding 🦷

Our vet Tiffany recently went to see an alpaca for a dental.
The history was ‘quidding’, a term meaning when an animal drops bits of food whilst eating - usually due to dental discomfort making them unable to chew properly.

➡️Swipe to see the culprit, a rotten tooth, which Tiffany removed to help this patient feel much more comfortable!

This weekend it is Anna’s Welsh 3000’s hike in support of North West air ambulance. This includes 50km of hiking with 4000m of ascent in under 24h.

There is still time to sponsor her! You can do so via the link in our bio or the link below.

Good luck Anna! 🥾⛰️

https://www.justgiving.com/page/anna-whitehead-2?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=CL

🪰🪰🪰

New this year, SCOPS has released a blowfly forecast.

This will help to predict high risk periods for fly strike, and allow you time to take preventative measures such as dagging, shearing, applying/administering ectoparasite control, and introducing fly prevention controls such as traps.

Find the forecast here https://www.scops.org.uk/forecasts/blowfly-forecast/
Link in bio

❗️REMINDER❗️

The deadline for applications for vaccine splitting is Friday the 15th of May! This is in order to get stock vaccinated before peak midge season.

If you would like to split a bottle of vaccine please enquire before this date. If you have already enquired, we will be in touch this month to organise collection dates.

Please get in touch with the farm team to enquire about bluetongue vaccine splitting, or for advice about how to protect your stock this summer.

Poisonous plants day 5 🌳

Poisonous plants day 4 🌼

Poisonous plants day 3 🌺