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The Muster- Andrew Cochrane: NS Vets · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Andrew Cochran of.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: NSVets joins us once again.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: Of course, NSVets are official animal health advisors to the muster. Cocky,
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: good afternoon. Not probably a lot of good around it, though,
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: as far as the week goes. Tuesday and Monday aside,
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: it's been a bit of a grind.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: It has. It's a nice change today, at least from Wednesday. But, yeah,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: spring just keeps throwing curveballs, doesn't it?
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: And this is your busy time of year as well?
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: It is, yeah. It's probably peak spring busy for us now.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: So for the next fortnight, at least next three weeks,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: we're sort of flat out and then things start to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: ease off a little bit, at least for a period,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and then we get into mating as well. So, yeah,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: all hands to the wall.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: So how's calving been going? How's it been received, I suppose?
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty good, I think, overall. There's been a few
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: more calving issues that we've seen compared to normal. We've
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: still got one farm dealing with a pretty nasty salmonella outbreak,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: so sort of helping them through that. I think they've
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: had to treat over 100 cows now. So, again, if anything,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: that's a reminder to everyone to seriously consider vaccination. It's
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a reasonably cheap vaccine, and compared to the cost that
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: this farm is going through, along with the stress of
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: having to deal with up to 10 or more sick
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: cows every day, I think the vaccination pays for itself
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: very quickly. So something for people to think of. But yeah, otherwise,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I guess a lot of early start for us at
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the moment. Metro checking cows, still a lot of this
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: budding happening with calves. We've started moving into, you know,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: sort of thinking about mating. So some pre-mating bloods to
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: check minerals, not just in cows, but importantly, and probably
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: the place we find animals most efficient is the young stock.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: So the yearlings that are going to be going to
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the bull AI stage in the next six weeks or so,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: making sure that their selenium and copper levels are adequate
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: because often we find they're not. And yeah, just putting
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: together plans around synchrony. So it won't be long, we'll
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: be getting some first PG shots into heifers for AI,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: making a plan around non-cycling cows. And so it's getting
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to that stage now where we need to be thinking about,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: for those of you without collars, getting some tail paint
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: on so that we can do pre-mating heats and work
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: out I guess the first step really is quantifying the issue.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Is there an issue? So we can only do that
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: through tail paint if we don't have collars on. For
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the collar guys, that's just going to be keeping an
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: eye on that and making a plan sort of in
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: that 10 days before a plan starter meeting as to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: whether or not you've got an issue and how we
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: go about fixing it.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: As far as I've heard with salmonella, has there been
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: many fatalities?
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: He's done a reasonable job, this fella, of keeping them alive.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I haven't got an accurate up-to-date one, but I suspect
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: it'll be between 10 and 20 dead cows. And he's
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: only sort of kept them alive really by being very vigilant.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: He's watching the cows twice a day. He's picking up
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: sick cows. He's onto it enough now that he's picking
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: up these sick cows just on reduced milk yield. So
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: he can almost see them at milking time. And then
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: he watches them walk out of the shed as well.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: And anything with it sort of ears down and looking
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: a bit sad. gets treated so he's been very proactive
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: in that front and I know that's been a big
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: stress for him because he's had to do a lot
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: of that himself so yeah as a result though he's
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: keeping these cows alive and they are coming back which
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: is promising.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good news, absolutely. Lambing flat out at the moment.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: There's probably not too much you guys can do, although
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: some people with a few post-mortems might be something to consider.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: We talked about this for beef and lamb last week,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: but farmers, are they doing much in the way of
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: post-mortems on farm?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Not a lot would be my understanding, and it's a
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: busy time of year for them, so they haven't probably
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: got time to be mucking around cutting open dead lambs
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: when there's been a snowstorm and they know why those
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: lambs are dying. But There is a bit of information
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: that can be gathered, particularly on days like today, I
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: guess would be a classic, where it's not particularly cold.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: They shouldn't really be dying of exposure in huge amounts,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: especially where I am at the moment. Anyway, it might
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: be different in other parts of Southland. But the thing
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: we can learn most probably, which is where the vet
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: gets involved, is looking at subclinical goiter, so iodine deficiency.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: And for anyone that's given flexidine, probably not necessary to
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: be looking into this too closely. But if you're relying
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: on an oral drench to supplement your iodine, particularly if
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: you're just doing it pre-lam or if you're not supplementing
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: iodine at all, it's worth every couple of years at
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: least looking at some lam post-mortems to check that that's
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: not costing you. So one of the major impacts of
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: low iodine in your ewe flock is lambs that will
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: be born sort of a bit slow and they can't
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: regulate their temperature as well. And so what we tend
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: to see is reduced lamb survival and that could be
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: costing farmers quite a bit on these sort of marginal
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: days where it's not cold enough really to be killing
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: a lamb, but if they've got low iodine, it might
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: be enough to tip them over. So to diagnose that,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: we do a post-mortem on the lamb. We have to
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: dissect out the thyroid gland and weigh that, compare that
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: to the body weight of the lamb and come up
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: with a number that gives us an idea of whether
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: or not iodine might be impacting your survival. In really
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: extreme cases when they've got goiter, it's obvious, and farmers
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: will see that. I've seen lambs with thyroid glands the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: size of a mandarin, and anyone's going to notice that.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: But that's typically the tip of the iceberg. There'll be
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: lambs that are less obvious and are being impacted.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Andrew, a few farmers contemplating your lambing date next year,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: moving into October possibly, based on the previous three Septembers
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: that we've experienced.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: What are your thoughts around this?
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I guess when it's the third time we've
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: had this sort of a spring, you start to worry
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: that this is the new normal and adjusting your lambing
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: date could be worth considering. What I tend to find
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: with some of those guys that have later lambing dates,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: they're not usually any further behind when it comes to
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: January or December at weaning. And so what we tend
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: to see as a result is use lambing on the
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: better pasture covers. And so milking better, the lamb grows better.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: And so you still end up with a lamb that's
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: getting close to that 30 kilos at weaning, even though
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: you might be 10 days, 14 days behind your neighbor.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: So I think often there can be gains to be
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: made by tweaking things like that. I guess it all
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: comes back in some ways to body condition as well.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: But having those pasture covers there at lambing is really
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: important to make sure that that ewe reaches her peak milk.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: As much as we don't like to think that we are,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: sheep and beef farmers are also dairy farmers. They're making milk,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and that's milk that creates the growth that results in
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: that good lamb or good calf. So pasture and feeding
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: is what drives a lot of that.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Just finally, you talked about feed before being a priority.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: For animals at the moment.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: Given the lack of temperature and sunshine, how is the
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: feed situation of what you've seen?
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my general feeling would be it's behind where we
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: want it to be. And I think most farmers would
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: agree with that. We're seeing a lot of feed get wasted.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So I've heard of farmers having to spread out ewes
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and even considering spreading out hoggetts. much earlier than they
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: would normally do just because they're finding their wrecking paddocks,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: paddocks that should last three days are only lasting one.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: And so as a result of that and the colder temperatures,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I think pasture covers are well behind where we'd like
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: them to be, and that will be impacting on ewes
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: and lamb growth. A lot of the grass sort of
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: looks like it wants to grow, so it just really
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: needs a week or two of weather like we had
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday. Unfortunately, that's only... very sporadic, but if we
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: could have a good week of sunny weather with warm temperatures,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: I think the grass would take off.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Andrew, NSVETS, the best way to get in touch with
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: the team?
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: You give us a call at the Riversdale. I think
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: at this time of year you'll be leaving a message
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: and we'll do our best to get back to you
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: at 03 202 5636 or in Te Anau, 03 249 7039.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Andrew Cochrane, always appreciate your time.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Awesome. Cheers, Andy.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Andrew Cochrane of NSVETS. In the busy season, for sure.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: You're listening to the master up next, Phil Duncan of Weatherwatch,
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: looking at the forecast for the next seven days for
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: the Deep South.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: I'm tired of the fake love show.