Intake Veterinary Services LTD

17/07/2024

In June one of our vets Sam spent 2 weeks volunteering for The Gambia Horse and Donkey Trust.
Whilst there, Sam saw a variety of patients and dealt with a multitude of different, sometimes heartbreaking cases.

The trust rely on donations to keep providing essential veterinary care and education for those most in need.
Please follow the link below if you can spare even the smallest amount to help. Thank you.

08/05/2024

Some of the team enjoying the rare post work sunshine this evening ☀️🍻 We hope our clients have managed to make the most of the well overdue nice weather too!

03/05/2024

This Monday vets Lizzy and Suzie attended the second Here4Horses CPD event in memory of Jamie Stewart, ‘Soundness from the ground up.’

It was a fantastic day of learning alongside farriers, physios and trainers. Lectures and practicals from Dr Sue Dyson and Dr Mark Caldwell made for a very thought provoking day.

We look forward to attending again next year!

09/04/2024

Please can we make all clients aware that if you’re trying to reach the office, the road from the Victorian Tap (Dipton Mill Road) is open for access.
Please politely beep or speak to the van driver to get through.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience.

28/03/2024

**EASTER OPENING TIMES**

-Thursday 28th: 9.30am - 5pm.
- Friday 29th: Office closed.
- Saturday 30th: Office closed.
- Sunday 31st: Office closed.
- Monday 1st: Office closed.
- Tuesday 2nd: 9.30am - 5pm

However, please be aware our vets are always on hand for emergencies out of hours.
If you need out of hours assistance please ring 01434 606033 and select option 1.

We hope all ours clients have a lovely Easter! 🐣🐑🎂

19/03/2024

**MEET THE TEAM**
There are a few new faces here at Intake and one of the newest is Louise…

Louise joined us in January and has hit the ground running after graduating from the University of Edinburgh in 2023. Louise has a wealth of experience and a keen interest in all aspects of large animal work, as she hails from a Shire horse stud farm and beef suckler herd in Yorkshire. We’re excited for Louise to be part of the expanding team at Intake.

Keep an eye out for her and her trusty side kick Ted the Jack Russel. 👋🏼

14/02/2024

INTAKE VETS MASTERING MEDICINES/ IBR/ FOOTROT MEETING.

MSD sponsored farmer meeting Golf Club on Monday 26th February at 12 -2pm.

We have Sarah Robson from MSD kindly coming to talk to us about IBR in cattle and footrot in sheep. 2 topics causing a lot of issues locally. We will also be running a short medicines course to allow you to comply with the powers that be!

Good hearty lunch and drinks provided.

Please message David on 07734 489598 or email [email protected] if you would like to attend.

01/02/2024

*Equine Insurance Forms*
Just to make all equine clients aware that unfortunately from January 2024 we’ve had to start charging a small fee to cover the increased admin time required for completion of insurance claim forms.
Due to the increased pressure and requirements from insurance companies over the years, this has meant increasing vet and reception staff time to complete and process insurance forms.
We’ve tried to keep this cost as fair and as minimal as possible and apologise for any confusion caused with invoices.

29/01/2024

Fab afternoon participating in some excellent gastroscopy CPD for Lizzy, Sam and Louise. Massive thank you to Jen from Boehringer and Harry Carslake from the University of Liverpool for keeping us up to date with the latest in ulcer treatments and prevention.
Also thanks to Rosie and Rocky our perfectly behaved demo ponies.🦄

If you have any suspicion your horse may be suffering from gastric ulceration or would like to find out more information take a look at…

https://intakevets.co.uk/equine/egus/

Or call one of the equine vets to book your horse in for an on site gastroscopy.

21/12/2023

CHRISTMAS OPENING HOURS 2023

SATURDAY 23rd: CLOSED
SUNDAY 24th: CLOSED
MONDAY 25th: CLOSED
TUESDAY 26th: CLOSED
WEDNESDAY 27th: OPEN 9.30 - 2.30
THURSDAY 28th: OPEN 9.30 - 2.30
FRIDAY 29th: OPEN 9.30 - 2.30
SATURDAY 30th: CLOSED
SUNDAY 31st: CLOSED
MONDAY 1st: CLOSED

TUESDAY 2nd: NEW OPENING HOURS 9.30 - 5.

As always, our vets are on call 24/7 over the festive period. Please ensure you are well stocked with any routine drugs before this time. A small charge will be applied to those requiring vets to drive to the practice to put drugs out during the out of hours periods.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE FROM ALL THE TEAM.

28/10/2023

**PLEASE BE AWARE**
Just to let all farm and equine clients know, Tuesday 31st is our annual stock take. This means the reception staff (and Nick) will be wading through lots of paperwork and having to deal with many IT glitches.
If possible, please could all larger drugs orders be made on or before Monday.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

06/10/2023

Vets David, Nick and Suzie enjoying a blustery, wet day at Hexham racecourse. 🐎
Thankfully, Lizzy is holding down the fort for the rest of the practice 👌🏼

01/10/2023

1st October marks Veterinary Receptionist Appreciation Day!
Intake Vets certainly couldn’t function without our Tracy at the helm and Charlie as Co Captain ensuring the office runs smoothly and the vets stay in line!

27/09/2023

*Meet the team*
Pease can everyone join us in welcoming back Lizzy (and Molly)!

Lizzy originally joined us in 2019 but after a few years working in Cumbria, Lizzy couldn’t stay away from our fabulous team, awesome clients and the beautiful Northumberland for long.

As a sheep farmers daughter, Lizzy has a wealth of experience with sheep 🐑 she has stacks of enthusiasm for farm work - she also rides and loves horses 🦄
Lizzie has a special interest in nutrition and has a great insight into understanding underlying diseases and how they affect health and performance.

I’m sure you will all be looking forward to meeting her or seeing her again and make her feel back at home here.

Welcome back Lizzy!

Contact information:
Work Mobile: 07508904711
Email: [email protected]

23/09/2023

**UPDATE**
PLEASE BE AWARE DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES WE’VE HAD TO CANCEL MONDAYS MEETING.
FUTURE MEETING TO BE ARRANGED. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

Farm meeting alert

Hopefully now the weather is turning you will all be keen to take 2 hours off from driving tractors on Monday the 2nd of October to join us in the cosy function suite at Hexham golf club from 12 - 2pm for some hearty food and educational talks?

We have MSD and their expert veterinary advisor coming to chat through Pneumonia in calves - because now is the time to be thinking about what vaccines to use and how to use them PRIOR to housing and disease risk. Once your seeing clinical pneumonia you have already lost money - in growth rates, medicine bills and food conversion rates. Prevention is better then cure! Text or call Dave to book your place

We also will be offering a mastering medicines workshop - call or text Beckie if you need to attend. You regular attendees will be pleased to know this will run as a separate session before or after the main meeting, so that those who come regularly don't need to stay for both! You can just drop in for the medicines chat if you don't have much spare time - just let us know if this is what you want to do. If you can't make this date but need your medicines certificate please let Beckie know.

We hope to see you there

22/09/2023

Focus on worms
Ben from Warrens Post Mortems Services aka "Ben of the dead" reached out yesterday to say he has had an influx of dead animals (horses, sheep and cattle) all of which are currently dying of massive worm burdens.
At Intake we have had colic or sick animal calls many of which likely due to high worm burdens
Let's catch these before they are sick or end up dead please 🙏
If you have a young animal, an old animal or thin animal (or group of animals) these are a high risk for heavy worm burdens - drop in a poo sample to the office.
If you don't know what your doing with wormers or what your animal(s) worming history is drop in a poo sample so that we can help guide you.
Ideally samples are taken freshly in the morning, put in a container labeled with your name, adress and animals name and dropped at the office before 9 am test results can usually be given the same day if we know they are coming in advance, or the following day if we don't!
We can test individual animals (horses) or pooled samples (cattle sheep or large horse groups) - chat to us about targeted sampling for improving worming practices or let us know if you need pots posted out, or if you would rather drop in to collect from the office.
Don't forget cattle and sheep testing can be paid for by the government on the latest grant for health planning- ask Beckie for help getting started. We can help with applications and paperwork if this is not your forte!

16/09/2023

Focus on "Orf"
With the lack of vaccine availability orf may be causing a headache amongst your lambs this year.
Orf is a viral disease - so treatment usually focuses on managing pain and treating secondary infections. Like all viral diseases, Orf can be self limiting - I.e a fit healthy animal should fight off the virus without too much trouble. On the flip side pet lambs, or those with immunocompromise due to another underlying disease, may struggle to fight off the virus, allowing it to spread on the individual lamb and through the flock.
If you see a few cases of orf ask yourself why? Are they high risk because you have lots of thistles needing topped which are allowing the virus an easy chance to infect? Or are your lambs run down due to worms, or nutritional deficiency. Drop in a muck sample as a starting point and let's chat through possible underlying stressors with your vet.
Don't forget orf can infect you! So care when handling and wear gloves, especially if you are immunocompromised too!
We usually avoid blanket treatment of antibiotics but have you considered blanket treatment of pain killers? Solacyl is a powdered pain killer that can be added to water courses, treating groups of animals easily without handling. Could be an option if orf gets out of hand in your flock while you are waiting to learn about the underlying causes on your farm.
For more info on Orf NADIS has some great resources as always:
https://www.nadis.org.uk/disease-a-z/sheep/contagious-pustular-dermatitis-orf/

Thanks for reading - call us if you need more advice or wish to book in a Health plan visit to discuss how to reduce cases next year by minimising stress and maximising immunity. Don't forget about the new grants available from the government which will cover health planning visits - we can help with your application if you aren't sure how to do it 😊🐑

15/09/2023

Friday feel good - meet Beckie!
Beckie had a traumatic start to life, her mother was poorly with retained foetal membranes after her birth, and Beckie was weak, she needed plasma infusions to stay alive - she was named after Beckie the vet, who worked hard to save her, and her mother's life.
Both are doing great 2 years on - She is now a little tinker, the leader of the herd, and when ever there is trouble to be had - she will find it!
Trying very hard to resist the urge to pop her in the truck and take her home 🥹🥰

15/09/2023

Nick isn't a fan of paw print bandages 🙄...so of course Beckie and Suzie are putting them on every horse while he is on holiday! 🤣🥳
Aren't they just so much fun?
Taking the sting out of being on box rest for this little lady 🐾

14/09/2023

Never a dull day at Intake HQ, this little alpaca was struggling a few months ago with a nasty sloughing wound infection that had gone deep into the bone - we thought he might never recover...
With lots of hard work from his dedicated owners and our super vet team, he has grown up into a fine looking fella and he has just placed second at Westmoorland County Show 😀 🥰👏🏆👌

14/09/2023

Vet Beckie has been out to Paragon Vets this week spending time with their Advanced breeding team.

Beckie met Rob their world renowned lead vet, who, alongside a passionate team have successfully bred cows from petri dishes - isn't that just mind blowing?

How does it work? Well here is some background, we will start at the beginning ..(long post warning - grab a brew and settle in!)

A normal cow when in season produces a large follicle containing an egg, which is fertilised by a bull (who is bought based on his estimated genetic merit - or rugged good looks 😉). A cow would usually produce one calf a year and genetic improvement is slow, with each calf being a slight improvement on the generation before.

Some people choose to use Artifical Insemination, which can speed up genetic improvement by allowing mail order of the highest genetic merit bulls in the country (or even the world if using frozen semen) success rates are lower then with natural serving, but genetic potential is greater - your calves could be babies of the best looking and best performing bulls around 😎 each of your cows could produce one calf with enhanced genetic potential.

Embryo transfer is the next most fancy development. Cows with high genetic potential can be encouraged to have multiple follicles using hormonal treatments. These cows can then be mated, but obviously can't carry more then one safely (except in exceptional circumstances). The embryos are collected and shared amongst cows who may have be genetically 'undatables' characteristics that aren't desirable to pass on to future generations with welfare or production limitations. Thus a good cow with embryo transfer could have a lifetime worth of good calves in a single year, a whole herd of calves in one cycle.

With IVF the technology is better again you could have a whole herd of calves from the best cows and the best bulls across the world 🌎 a utopian future 🤯 here's how it works.

You can start with a genetic test blood or hair pluck to pick your best cow(s) she can go for a little all inclusive holiday to the northern lake district - roughly an hour from our practice base in Hexham.

After some hormonal synchronisation, Rob and Paul remove the main big egg producing follicle from the o***y to prevent the normal ovulation process from occurring. This allows a wave of follicles to grow - so one cow of high genetic merit often has 15-25 eggs and potential calves instead of just one. Below is a video of Rob skillfully collecting multiple eggs via a vaginal probe and needle using an ultrasound guided probe. The needle is attached to a suction device which collects the eggs.

These eggs pass to Charlotte in the lab, who ensures the eggs are viable, and nutures them like through their growth and development stages. Imogen checks the semen from bulls, with impeccably high genetic potential, for any defects before mixing with the eggs for fertilisation.

After fertilising, the conceptus is grown in an incubator until it is ready to hatch - at this stage it can be transfered back into a cow for 9 months before the utopian calf is born. Embryos can also go into storage for sale or future use.

Like most veterinary procedures IVF is much more affordable in cattle then humans - a human ivf cycle can set you back £5000 for a cow, a cycle is approximately £1100 which typically produces 6 embryos.

Success rates vary from cow to cow but good body condition is important, and young, fit healthy animals should ideally be on a good nutritious diet for best success.

Hopefully this gives you an insight into breeding technologies- obviously genetics is only half the story. Full potential is only reached if younstock are well looked after and we are happy to help advise on management and care once they hit the ground.

If you are interested and want to know about breeding technologies and options for your cows (or any animal for that matter) give Beckie a call 07500040140

Thanks to the whole team at Paragon for a very informative day - great to meet such a knowledgeable passionate team.

08/09/2023

Meet the team - Amy Lee, nursing assistant
Amy has been working with Intake for 3 years, though has 6 years of previous experience in veterinary practice.

Amy works alongside our team of vets, mainly assisting with equine work (particularly enjoying endoscopic examinations, lameness investigations, imaging and racecourse work), though is in her element on farms blood sampling and getting her tan on...wait ...I'm not sure that is a tan 🤔

Amy's family farm is in Whitley Chapel and she is slowly growing her own menagerie of animals with Dutch spotted sheep and ducks. A keen tug of war athlete, fueled by Macdonalds, Amy also enjoys participating in the young farmers pantomimes.

07/09/2023

Intake Vets are looking for a new large animal vet to join the team! We are a proudly independent farm and equine practice in Hexham, Northumberland, looking to hire a new team member for maternity cover (and ideally beyond!)

https://www.vetrecordjobs.com/job/75187/veterinary-surgeon-the-happiest-place-in-the-country-to-live-voted-2019

Full or part time applications considered, for the full advert please see the link above and contact Suzie on 07961119777 or send your CV to [email protected].

06/09/2023

First race of the season at Hexham racecourse this evening, so our veterinary team are attending casualty management training -vet Dave is acting casualty / lying down on the job!

27/08/2023

Sheep scab meeting

5th September 12.30 at Riverdale Hall Hotel.

Open to both clients and none clients predominately in the North Tyne Valley focussing on the prevention and treatment of sheep scab.

A chance to talk openly and honestly about the challenges of scab and moving forwards devise a plan for control.

Light lunch provided.

Please comment below or text Beckie or David if you would like to come along

16/08/2023

We are very sad to announce that Matthew has left us to focus solely on farm work. However, we are thrilled to tell you Lizzy will be returning - after a short escape to the Lake district she couldn't resist the Northumberland charm and clearly missed our fabulous team and wonderful clients. I'm sure you will be looking forward to her return on the 18th of September - for now though, we are a vet short, so please don't call or text this number 07508 904 711 as the mobile will be out of action for a few weeks.
The office number if you need anything is 01434 606033 or a full list of vet mobile numbers can be found below.

03/08/2023

‘Husk’ diagnosis in cattle in June and July
The APHA has recently sent an alert regarding ‘husk’/lungworm which has been diagnosed at Veterinary Investigation Centres (VICs) in England and Wales earlier in the grazing season than expected.
Lungworm was diagnosed in a 5-year-old bull from a dairy herd that was examined postmortem. It had been with cows at pasture and had exhibited signs of respiratory disease for three days before it died, despite treatment with antibiotics and anti-inflammatories. The presence of Dictyocaulus viviparus infection indicated a diagnosis of husk, and PCR testing was positive for bovine herpesvirus-1, confirming infectious rhinotracheitis (IBR) involvement. The bull had not been vaccinated for either husk or IBR, or received anthelmintic treatment.
This was noteworthy for how early it occurred in the grazing season. This year’s dry hot spring probably reduced exposure to the parasites on pasture, delaying the development of immunity. Husk should be considered in any age animals, if they are at pasture and exhibit coughing. Further advice on parasitic diseases and their control is available at

What is COWS? Control Of Worms Sustainably (COWS) is a voluntary initiative aiming to provide the best available, evidence-based information to the beef and dairy cattle industries in relation to the sustainable control of both internal and external parasites. COWS funders As a voluntary initiative,...

25/07/2023

Sadly we currently have very few on the 'attending list' for our ovine abortion meeting next week. If you would like to come please can you let us know today or we may have to cancel 😞 12- 2 at hexham golf club

OVINE ABORTION MEETING

Kindly sponsored by MSD.
Venue: Hexham Golf Club
Date: Monday 31st July
Time: Noon til 2pm

After a spring with way higher than normal levels of abortion in our flocks, this is an important topic going forward. The importance of vaccination, biosecurity and other tactics to minimize risk will all be discussed.

RSVP: we need numbers for catering so please contact David, Beckie or email [email protected] to book your place(s)

17/07/2023

All clients please be aware. We are currently experiencing an unexpected power cut. Please bare with us until the phone lines to the office are back up and running.

11/07/2023

OVINE ABORTION MEETING

Kindly sponsored by MSD.
Venue: Hexham Golf Club
Date: Monday 31st July
Time: Noon til 2pm

After a spring with way higher than normal levels of abortion in our flocks, this is an important topic going forward. The importance of vaccination, biosecurity and other tactics to minimize risk will all be discussed.

RSVP: we need numbers for catering so please contact David, Beckie or email [email protected] to book your place(s)