Fraser Jones milks 1,500 Holstein Friesians across two sites near Welshpool. As a Disease? Not On My Farm! ambassador, he works closely with his vet Oli Hodgkinson, of Trefaldwyn Vets, to prioritise animal health and welfare. Here he provides a farmers perspective on the recently launched National Office of Animal Health Livestock Vaccination Guidelines and considers their potential impact on the dairy sector.
Many farmers recognise that preventing disease on-farm has never been more important. Healthier animals not only mean better welfare overall, but also help to improve productivity, leading to a more sustainable future for the sector.
For me, a proactive and preventative approach to herd health, supported through vaccination, is integral to my dairy business. It is such an important insurance policy, especially in our situation, with 4,000 animals on our watch.
If something goes wrong, it can go wrong very quickly at this scale. For these reasons, I was pleased to hear about the vaccination guidelines published by NOAH this summer.
Setting out to support farmers and vets in helping improve health standards in all UK livestock, NOAH has split its vaccination recommendations into two categories.
In the dairy sector, category one covers bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD), IBR, leptospirosis, bovine respiratory disease and calf scour as the highest priority vaccines, recommended as default.
All six of these vaccinations are already a vital part of our herd health plan that we have developed with Olis veterinary expertise.
Our vaccination protocol starts at two weeks of age for our calves, with an intranasal vaccine to help protect them against respiratory disease throughout their lifetime.
I would be surprised if most of my fellow dairy farmers in the UK are not already vaccinating against these key diseases. In my view, we all have a responsibility to prevent these endemic diseases from impacting our herds.
As well as protecting livestock health and welfare, there is also a significant commercial benefit, if you can avoid disease outbreaks from impacting cow productivity.
In addition to this, milk buyers and the sector more widely are keen to support the responsible use of antibiotics. That starts with the mantra prevention is better than cure and I think that should apply to everybody.
I appreciate that the cost of vaccine programmes can be a concern for some farmers, especially with so many financial pressures impacting the industry.
However, the fact is that if you experience BVD or IBR issues on-farm, it is going to cost you a fortune to resolve the problem.
I would not ever consider not using the category one vaccines now, given the risk and consequences of a disease outbreak on-farm and the prospect of compromising our overall farm profitability.
I understand that if you do not have a particular disease issue, such as with BVD, that is a valid reason not to vaccinate. If that is your decision, I would say at the least it is essential to work with your vet to regularly monitor for disease. Otherwise, it is a recipe for disaster.
I see our vet as part of our day-to-day team. Oli does a fantastic job of explaining the benefits of vaccination and advising what protocols we should implement across our three sites to help us be more productive and efficient.
In our case, I have discussed with Oli whether we also need to consider using the category two vaccine recommendations inthe National Office of Animal Healthsnew guidelines, which include salmonella, ringworm and mastitis.
These vaccinations are advised as best practice for farms with a history of any of these diseases in their herd or which are seeing symptoms. As we have not had any issues with these, we have made the decision, with Olis input, to continue monitoring and only begin vaccination if necessary.
The vet comes out to the farm every three to four weeks to carry out blood tests on our youngstock, picking out 10 calves at random for general health monitoring.
He then shares the results on a WhatsApp group I have set up for our youngstock team, so we all know exactly what is going on and can pick up on any areas of concern straight away.
It appears other dairy farmers agree that independent expert advice is the best way to learn about industry changes.
According to a Disease? Not On My Farm! poll recently posted on its social media channels, it shows consensus around the benefits of having an open, two-way discussion with your vet and weighing up the different options for disease prevention.
It is the best way to put a strategy in place which will work for you and your livestock.
Farmer-led workshops which give us the opportunity to learn how other producers successfully control disease on-farm are also incredibly helpful.
It is so important we work collectively to achieve the best outcome for our herds and the entire sector.
If we stand a chance of eradicating any of these diseases nationally, we cannot just tackle them on a selection of farms. Preventative action must be taken across the board.
For me, that starts with better education about the risks of endemic disease and a greater degree of collaboration.
