In this issue
Farm Dogs – Victims and Villains
Vaccination Special Offer for Farm Dogs
Lungworm – It’s here and now!
Blue Tongue Virus
This Month: October

TOP
Farm Dogs – Victims and Villains

When a collapsed working collie was brought into the surgery last month it was a shame. When she subsequently died due to liver failure, it was a crime because her death could have been prevented by annual vaccinations.

Farm collies are probably more at risk of contracting some common preventable diseases than pet dogs. Leptospirosis is well known to cause disease in cattle but there are two common cousins to the bovine species which kill dogs. One species is carried by rats, which causes Weil’s disease in humans and the other is dog specific. Both can be spread by contaminated water courses and both diseases are preventable by annual vaccination.

This dog was replaced almost immediately at the cost of £1600. The replacement and all the other dogs on the farm are now vaccinated.

Dogs also carry diseases which affect the profitability of other stock. There are an increasing number of lamb carcases being condemned in slaughter houses because of tissue cysts caused by dog tapeworms. Again this problem can be reduced by worming your dogs with a good wormer every three months.

Working collies are valuable in monetary terms but many of you would admit that they are valued working colleagues and have degree of emotional attachment to them. So why are they not treated as well as they should be?

Vaccination Special Offer for Farm Dogs
To help promote the health status of your dogs, we are offering a special deal on both vaccination and worming. Between 15th October and 16th November, we will vaccinate farm dogs for half price.

Dogs which have not had a vaccine within the past 12 months will require two shots 2 weeks apart so don’t leave the first shot to the last minute. During October, if you buy three worming doses of Drontal, we will supply the fourth dose free.

Please contact the surgery for more details or to book your dogs in for vaccination.

TOP
Lungworm – It’s here and now!

At the beginning of this month, I was called out to an outbreak of lungworm. The farmer knew what it was without me telling him. He’d looked them in the morning and noticed one heifer slightly off colour and so decided to go back to them in the late afternoon.

What greeted him was a terrible sight. Out of twelve stirks, six were salivating and standing with their tongues out and all were coughing constantly. He wisely called us in immediately.

All the animals received pour on wormer and Nuflor to fend off subsequent pneumonia and half of them received finadyne. The next morning all were still alive and coughing but the worse one still looked very ill and we’re still waiting to see if it lives or dies.

All unvaccinated cattle outside are now at risk from a lungworm outbreak. If you use a long acting pour on wormer on them now it “should” protect them until turn in and they probably won’t need worming then.

TOP
Blue Tongue Virus

A frequent question we are being asked is “will blue tongue come here?”. The answer is perhaps. It cannot spread from animal to animal as it requires the injection of the virus by the midge to set up infection in another animal. It can be spread in contaminated semen and from dam to offspring via the placenta. Conversely it cannot spread down the generations in the midge. Therefore for the virus to over winter it needs to be within a carrier mammal. My concern is that mild winters may allow the adult midges to survive and so testing and culling carrier stock may not be successful.
So lets hope for something we haven’t had for a long time – a frosty winter.

TOP
This Month: October

	Vaccinate calves against pneumonia. The still muggy days of November will soon be here and if FMD restrictions are not lifted soon, calf pens will be over full with bull calves.
	As the auctions are re-opening, vaccinate new sheep against clostridial diseases and abortion. Treat them with Dectomax and Levamisole to prevent introducing scab and wormer resistant gut worms.
	Fluke sheep with a compound which will kill all stages of the life cycle.

TOP

PDF
This newsletter is also available as a PDF file Click here