Energy Vets Taranaki Ltd
Energy Vets Taranaki: We're here to help your pet stay happy and healthy.
The local Taranaki Vet Branch of NZVA was treated to an informative talk by six providers of wearable data collection technology for dairy cattle. The technology ranged from collars to ear tags to stomach boluses, and all had their unique features and reporting formats.
Clearly, this technology is developing rapidly and is becoming very commonplace on farm.
Some technology allows GPS tracking, virtual fencing, and drafting/herding.
How much use you want to make of the data or how much data you want is up to individual users, but we see this technology as being beneficial to animal welfare, early disease detection, and reducing wastage. The technology is there, and we can help with decision trees on what to do with the alert information, e.g., an unspecified “sick” cow that shows no clinical signs.
As more farms use this information, we want to integrate the data into farm health plans. We are keen to talk about using this information for better animal health outcomes on your farm.
Watch this space.
We have had a couple of episodes of Nitrate Poisoning in grazing dairy cows over the last couple of weeks. This is apotentially devastating toxic event where mortality rates can be high and additional significant losses associated with subsequent abortions in surviving cows.
Nitrates build up in grasses, like annual ryegrass, when a lack of sunlight hinders plant metabolism. Forage high in Nitrates ingested quickly without restriction results in absorption of nitrites by the cows. This interferes with hemoglobin, and the blood can’t carry enough oxygen. The cow quickly dies of asphyxiation. Many cows survive, but their unborn calf dies of asphyxiation via the low blood oxygen to the placenta. The dead calf is then expelled about a week later.
The tell-tail sign is cows down (or dead) with brown mucusmembranes instead of the usual pink. It’s an emergency. Get the cows off the pasture urgently, but without moving the mob too quickly or too far. If we get treatment quick enough, we can give wobbly and down cows an injection of methylene blue, which reverses the effect on the hemoglobin.
We can test the forage to see what level of nitrates the grass contains. < 1% is safe. 1-2% is potentially toxic and can be fed in limited amounts to cows that have already been given hay or silage. >2% is quite toxic, and feeding would have to be managed extremely cautiously with prior feeding and restricted area and time.
We can send grass samples off to check for Nitrates and get results the next day.
Just a reminder that the new Rotovirus vaccine is given 3 – 12 weeks prior to expected calvingdate to boost the quantity of colostrum anti-bodies to Rotovirus. Remember, this is only one part of the battle. More and more of our farmers are using BRIX Refractometers to measure the quality of their “gold” colostrum and only using fresh, clean colostrum meeting the standard to top up calves in that first 12 hours after birth. The key is getting that good colostrum in the calf in a timely manner. Don’t just jab and walk away. Talk to us about using a Refractometer for checking your colostrum
The new bottles have the updated label now. The new dose on the bottle is the correct dose –1ml/15kg body weight or 30 mls for a 450kgcow daily. Updated meat withhold is 10 days. The new milk withhold is 108 hrs or 9 milkings.
The old long-acting Duplocillin LA now has a 91-day meat and 35-day milk, so we are not prescribing this product in most circumstances now.
Veterinarian Jo Gibbs has been helping us out for the last few weeks in the Equine area. Jo will be with
us until later July.
We anticipate the arrival of Jenny Hamilton from the USA to take up a full time Equine vet / large
animal position. Jenny is due to start on the 14th of July.
Later July, we are expecting the arrival of a new small animal veterinarian to join the team. Sieara
Claytor is an American who graduated as a vet from Sydney, Australia, last year.
In the interim, we will have a couple of small animal vet locums Lucie Gevers and then Andrew Dudgeon
who will be helping over the spring while one of our vets is on extended leave overseas.
We are pleased to have a full team eager to provide vet services over the coming spring months.
From NZ’s leading and pioneer injectable trace mineral brand, proven on NZ farms to improvereproductive performance, comes a new product with enhanced levels of zinc - MULTIMIN® Evolution.Containing copper, manganese, selenium and zinc, MULTIMIN® Evolution contains the highest tracemineral content (90 mg/mL)1 of any other injectable trace mineral product on the NZ market in a lowvolume formulation.
MULTIMIN® Evolution has 50% more zinc than any other injectable trace mineral product on themarket, developed to meet the recommendations of international nutritional experts for zinc in highproducing cattle.
The role of zinc in cattle:
Why do high producing cattle need more zinc?
Due to its many essential functions, zinc is the second most abundant trace mineral in the body, onlyafter iron. Therefore, our high producing cows naturally require high inputs of zinc. This highrequirement for zinc will outstrip the requirements for any other trace mineral during high demandperiods, such as mating and calving.
On average, New Zealand dairy cows produce 25% more milk than what they did 10 years ago. This has meant additional requirements for extra zinc due to improvements in cattle genetics and increasing productivity over time.
The role of zinc and fertility:
Antioxidants synthesised from zinc are essential for ovulation, conception, and embryo survival. During development, the egg is required to accumulate high levels of zinc to ensure successful fertilisation and embryo development. Eggs that accumulate more zinc are of higher quality, compared to those containing less zinc. When and how to use MULTIMIN® Evolution:MULTIMIN® Evolution should be administered to herds four weeks before mating, and to bulls 12weeks before mating starts. MULTIMIN Evolution is administered as a subcutaneous injection at 1ml/50 kg in young cattle (up to 12 months) and 1 ml/75 kg in yearlings (1–2 years), and 1 ml/100 kgin adult cattle (>2 years). MULTIMIN® has nil meat and milk withholding periods.
Ask your vet about using MULTIMIN® Evolution in your herd prior to mating this season.
Energy Vets Taranaki: We're here to help your pet stay happy and healthy.
