For cattle and sheep farmers striving to maximise efficiency and productivity, a new livestock care guide has been published by The Allflex UK Group.
Among the guidance it contains are sections on:
• Good hygiene and maximum retention in identity tagging
• The value of self-grooming in cattle care, including automatic insecticide dosing in fly risk periods
• Latest developments in labour-saving computerisation of herd or flock records
• Exploiting automation in fertility and nutrition monitoring
• BVD screening of calves at birth with open access online directory of BVD-negative individuals
The Allflex Pro guide supports the linkage of high animal and financial performance with exemplary stockmanship, according to Allflex’s Mark Lawrence.
"Individual electronic identification, for example, is opening up new opportunities in livestock productivity and care," he says.
"In this area, we can help farmers keep pace with the latest developments. Our multi-national experts are themselves working on the latest uses of new developments to improve livestock enterprise performance."
Hill farmer David Cooper from Tardoes Farm, Muirkirk, Ayrshire, speaks in the guide about a valuable mechanical innovation.
He keeps a flock of 3,000 Herdwick and Welsh Mountain ewes, and uses a semi-automatic tagger which has enabled him to tag up to 300 lambs per hour, helping improve productivity significantly.
