Farm Animal Veterinary Services for sheep flock health across Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire.
However large or small your flock we can provide a tailored, annual plan of action. Our priority is maximising your flock’s productivity, health and welfare. Analysis of disease prevalence must be actively monitored and allows us to target areas where improvements can be made
Our Sheep Flock Discussion Group is open to all commercial and pedigree farmers. We hope that by the sharing of knowledge between farmers and vets we can increase productivity on farm. Throughout the year we will hold four meetings, benchmark production data amongst the flocks, hold an annual flock review (included in the membership) and make full use of our bespoke designed flock health plans.
We can carry out Ram Fertility examinations for breeding, selling or insurance purposes. These are performed on farm and the semen is analysed in the Practice Lab.
Using diet information, we can help advise on the most efficient feeding of a flock at lambing time to maximise lamb survival and minimise ewe problems. We offer pre-lambing metabolic profiling for a sample of ewes to check the suitability of the diet. We can also sample for trace element status. We can send forage for gross nutrient and mineral analysis if required. We have access to diet softwarefor flocks using TMR diets.
We have multiple pedigree flocks that are MV accredited so are regularly performing MV screens. We also encourage all our flocks if breeding replacements to do some informal Johnes screening as part of their health plan commitments. We offer our commercial flocks ‘thin ewe’ profiles at culling time to monitor for thin ewe diseases such as Johnes and MV.
We regularly carry out castrations and other routine surgeries either at the practice or out on farm. We are happy to disbud goats on farm or in the surgery. We also perform routine surgeries including castration.
All our vets are enthusiastic and dedicated farm vets. We provide our own 24-hour emergency service always with a smile on our faces!
Our practice firmly believes that appropriately targeted post-mortem investigation can be a very valuable and quite economic tool for informing herd health and farm management decisions.
We have a dedicated post-mortem room at West Stour branch where we can perform economic sheep/goat, poultry/game bird or cattle youngstock post-mortems. We can also perform post-mortem investigation on smaller animals (sheep/goats/calves) on farm if this is more convenient.
For adult cattle post-mortem investigations, we generally advise that these are carried out either at a fallen stock centre such as SecAnim or at the hunt kennels as a thorough investigation on farm is rarely possible.
Our in-house laboratory offers worm egg and coccidia counts, milk sample culture and somatic cell count testing, haematology, biochemistry and investigation of external parasites.
All post-mortems should be performed as promptly after death as is practical.
We currently work with a significant proportion of large Dairy Sheep and Goat flocks and herds in the South West and across the UK. We have an enthusiastic and experienced team of vets working within this specialist and innovative area of farming. We have now hosted four international conferences dedicated to the dairy sheep and goat industry. Please follow this link to register your interest in next year’s conference and learn more about our consultancy services: https://dairysheepandgoatconference.co.uk/
Farm animal veterinary care and advice, 365 days a year.
Local and highly experienced expert veterinary team.
Over 65 years of service to the local farming community.
Courses and events to help share knowledge & best practices.
Branches across Dorset and drug collection in Sherborne.
Highly experienced team of vets dedicated to your specific needs.
