We're loyal, not just local.

Spring & Calving News

Pre-Mating Planning

It's mating season again. Time is going too fast!

Some common themes we are hearing in our repro planning meetings:
- Feed is tight and slow coming away.
- Some concerns on BCS loss rate in some herds.
- Many yearling heifers still have no pre-mating weights to gauge how well they have grown out.
- Minerals still highly variable on some farms, despite dosatron supplementations.
- Still seeing Heifers out on grazing blocks with low selenium or low copper.

Please keep in touch with us pre-mating to help with your Repro goals and planning.

Abamectin Drenching

You may be aware a South Island dairy company recently advised its milk suppliers to stop using abamectin-based drench products as a condition of supply. This development comes after random testing by the China Inspection and Quarantine Agency detected abamectin in UHT milk imported into China. The value detected was within New Zealand MRL limits. However, the dairy company deemed detection of abamectin would cause significant reputational damage to the importer and the country, and cause issues with future imports.

Maximum residue limits (MRLs) are set to limit amounts of agricultural compounds in food commodities or animal feeds. The ultimate goal of making sure that residues in food are not present at levels presenting an unacceptable risk to humans and, where relevant, to animals. Different countries/regulators set their MRLs in slightly different ways.

If a commodity does not have an MRL for a particular substance, then some markets may set a default MRL. For instance, in NZ, if the drug does not have an MRL, then the default residue level of 0.1 mg/kg applies.

Abamectin does not have an MRL for milk in New Zealand and so the default at 0.1 mg/kg applies. When we compare to other countries the NZ default setting is very high:
- Australia’s MRL for abamectin is 0.02 mg/kg
- In the USA and Japan the MRL for abamectin is 0.005 mg/kg 
- In the EU no MRL is set allowing a default to 0.01 mg/kg.

Abamectin is not registered for use in animals producing milk for human consumption in China.

Our Advice is to avoid the use of these drench products until a review is done nationally. There are other nil milk withholding products that are not abamectin-based (e.g eprinomectin, Eprinex ) if you need to drench lactating cows.

Heat Detection Skills

- How good are you and your team?
- Are you thinking of going all AB this year?
- Tags all visible for any in-paddock number recording?
- Does everyone know EXACTLY how to put a Kmar on? Do you know it has a small arrow for the correct application direction?
- Have you done a dummy run on your in-shed camera’s for the season?
- Have you thought about a training session for the team?

We can do an in-house training on-farm for your team to get everyone motivated and upskilled ready for AB. Call us to book a time.

Condition scoring: Best Done NOW!

Calf Rearer of the Year Awards

This year’s NCVC Calf Rearing End of Season Celebration & Awards Ceremony will be held on Tuesday 27th October at 5:30pm at the Culverden Clinic. All calf rearers and calf rearing teams are welcome to attend!

Drinks and nibbles will be provided, there will also be a debrief on the district's calf rearing season, and the presentation of this year’s Calf Rearer of the Year!

Calf Scour Outbreaks

We have had major issues on approx. 30 farms this season for Rotavirus infection (and some with Salmonella, Cryptosporidia and E.Coli). This has resulted in some farms having SIGNIFICANT AND COSTLY calf losses and ill thrift.

While it is fresh in your mind, please make a note to talk to us on how to plan what you need to do for prevention next year.

As always, any queries just keep in touch with us.

From the Vet and Tech Team - Trish, Alistair, Rob, Ian, Keira, Mara, Sarah W, Alana, Ingrid, Sam, Justin, Julia, Nathan, Brooke, Sarah McP, Hannah and Ben.

We're loyal, not just local.

www.ncvets.co.nz | enquiries@ncvets.co.nz