What are the opening hours?

Monday 8:30am - 5:30pm Tuesday 8:30am - 5:30pm Wednesday 8:30am - 5:30pm Thursday 8:30am - 5:30pm Friday 8:30am - 5pm

Black Sheep Farm Health

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Morpeth
Black Sheep Farm Health

We are an independent, locally owned dedicated farm only veterinary practice serving Northumberland
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21/01/2025

A belated thank you to Victoria for our lovely Christmas present.

Victoria has seen practice with us a couple of times, and as a thank you has done this wonderful painting of our Black Sheep pack! It is now displayed pride of place in reception 🐾

20/01/2025

We have lambing / calving order lists ready in reception! A copy will also be included with the January and February bills. 🐑🐑

As with every year, if you can please return your order forms in good time, it will allow Hazel and Donna to have your orders ready for collection.

18/01/2025

Earlier this week, Joe went to London to take part in a roundtable discussion about the UKs ongoing response to bluetongue virus and the latest on Foot and Mouth disease, alongside government ministers and other industry leaders.

These sorts of meetings are vital to protect our farmers and food security.

17/01/2025

Notes from our BTV meeting... Please get in touch with any questions or to discuss vaccination with a vet 🐮🐑

16/01/2025

There have been a few worrying reports of dog attacks locally.
Here is some information re what to do in the event of an attack.

15/01/2025

Acklington Mart

14/01/2025

Pneumonia Alert 🚨🐮

With temperatures having warmed so significantly in the few days or so, and damp conditions from the snow melt, please be vigilant for signs of pneumonia!

13/01/2025

📢Be Aware of VMD Changes before Lambing Time📢

Changes to Veterinary Medicine Regulations came into force on 17th May 2024.

The new regulations state that ‘a veterinary surgeon may not prescribe a veterinary medicinal product which is an antibiotic for prophylactic purposes’. Prophylactic means administering a medicinal product to an animal or group of animals before clinical signs of disease in order to prevent disease.

The rules have changed to further prevent the over-use and misuse of antibiotics, as this contributes to antibiotic resistance.

We will always prescribe antibiotics when they are required. However, as lambing nears for some flocks, please expect some more questions and follow up from us when we are prescribing antibiotics for newborn lambs, and remember there are steps we can take to prevent disease at lambing time.

Please get in touch to discuss pre-lambing metabolic bloods in ewes, colostrum management and hygiene in the shed. For those eligible, this could be covered by Resilience Funding or the AHWP.

12/01/2025

Picture(s) of the Week 📸

Thank you Tracey for sharing this lovely picture with us 🐑

We've been treated to some stunning views while out and about this week ❄

11/01/2025

🐮Have you heard about FerAppease? 🐮

FerAppease is a bovine maternal pheromone, that can be applied to cattle to reduce production of the stress hormone, cortisol.

This can be useful during stressful events such as weaning, castrating/dehorning/vaccination and moving/transportation/mixing.

Stress has significant detrimental impacts on livestock, from reduced feed intake and growth, to decreased fertility and increased susceptibility to disease.

As it is not a medicine, the product has nil withdrawal period.

10/01/2025

🐮BVD Check Test🐮

BVD is recognised as one of the most economically important diseases of cattle; it causes immunosuppression thus increasing prevalence of other diseases, in addition to reproductive problems such as infertility, abortion and birth defects.

As spring born calves approach nine months of age, this is the perfect opportunity for BVD surveillance. The BVD check test requires five animals aged 9-18 months from each management group to be blood sampled for BVD antibody.

The Animal Health & Welfare Pathway (AHWP) for cattle is focused on BVD control, and any keeper with 11 or more cattle is eligible to apply for the funding (£737 for BVD –ve herds, £1359 for BVD +ve herds) towards their check test and health planning.

09/01/2025

Last night we held our Bluetongue client meeting. Thank you for such a good turnout despite the snow and ice.

Thank you to Fiona Lovatt for making the journey to see us and sharing her expertise; it was an educational evening for all. The meeting covered everything from transmission and clinical signs of BTV, to how the disease has spread in other countries and models of how it may spread further across the UK. We also discussed the vaccines avalible against BTV, and decision making regarding vaccine use.

Thank you to Ceva Ruminants UK for sponsoring our food from Turnbull's Northumbrian Food.

For any clients who were unable to attend the meeting, please let us know if you would like a copy of notes from the meeting, or ring a vet if you'd like to discuss further.

08/01/2025

🎉Black Sheep turns 7! 🎉

Today is 7 years since the practice opened back in 2018. The practice has grown significantly since that first rainy Monday; we're now a team of 6 vets and 2 fantastic support staff.

Thank you to all our clients for your continued support, we look forward to what the next year will bring!

06/01/2025

Calibrate Your Drench Guns!🔫

In order for a wormer to work properly, it must be given at the correct dose rate. It is important to calibrate dosing guns regularly to ensure that they deliver the required dose.

Before Christmas, Jack calibrated one of his own dosing guns to find that his gun had to be set a 7mls to deliver a 4ml dose– checking this prevented quite a significant underdosing! Avoiding underdosing is important as this can drive resistance to our worming products and we may see treatment failures.

Calibration of dosing equipment can be done quickly and effectively using a syringe barrel or a measuring cylinder; we have some free measuring cylinders available from the practice.

05/01/2025

Picture of the week 📸

Blue skies certainly are a perk of this cold snap!

04/01/2025

🐑🐮NoBACZ 🐮🐑

Ready for lambing and calving, we will be stocking NoBACZ. NoBACZ is a unique, patented solution that rapidly disinfects and dries the navel, and contains a natural coloured resin that forms a lasting waterproof seal at the site, keeping bacteria out.

As NoBACZ should be used on navels in the same way to iodine, it works best when the navel is covered all the way up to the body wall; dipping navels tends to provide better 360° coverage.

This product has been extensively trialled and all feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The trial work revealed that for every 1000 lambs treated with NoBACZ rather than iodine, there were 17 more lambs alive and 400kg more lamb weight at 8 weeks old.

If you have any questions about the product, Fiona Lovatt will be speaking at our BTV meeting on Wednesday!

03/01/2025

Here is our first newsletter of 2025!

In this month we cover;
- BTV Meeting
- Pain Management Meeting
- VMD Changes
- Resilience Funding Reminder
- BVD Check Test Time
- NoBACZ
- Calibrate Drench Guns!

https://blacksheepfarmhealth.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/January-25-Newsletter.pdf

Address

Unit 4A Rothbury Industrial Estate
Morpeth
NE657RZ

Opening Hours

Monday	8:30am - 5:30pm
Tuesday	8:30am - 5:30pm
Wednesday	8:30am - 5:30pm
Thursday	8:30am - 5:30pm
Friday	8:30am - 5pm

Website

http://www.blacksheepfarmhealth.co.uk/

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Videos

Did you know dungbeetles are active all year round? This video was taken this week! Activity does reduce in the winter but does continue all year, this makes it important to provide habitat for them all year round, i.e. having some animals outside, even if this is just a couple of bulls!

Tup Testing Reminder 🐑 With 16% of tups tested being subfertile, testing is an important management tool to ensure all tups are fertile and working as they should be. Testing Tups involves a physical examination focusing on the 5 T's (tone, teeth, toes, testicles and treat) and then semen evaluation looking at gross and progressive motility. The video shows a 5/5 gross motility, it should look like a pint of guiness settling! To get your tups booked in for testing please give the practice a call

Rock Salt is an important supplement year round as Northumberland is generally low in salt. It also helps with magnesium uptake so supplementation is required to prevent staggers 🐑🐮

Case of the Week 🐮 It has been a busy few weeks for the bull testing kit, the video attached was taken by Jenny when she was out last week! Last year 18% of bulls tested by Black sheep failed their examination, can you afford not to test? Please give us a call go get booked in or have a discussion with one of the vets

Case of the week 🐮 Amongst other jobs, Kaz was out freeze branding earlier this week. Freeze branding is used widely for beef cattle in America and Australasia, as well as for the British dairy herd. Freeze brands are easily read from a distance, and provide an insurance against tags falling out. Cattle can be freeze branded as adults or when selecting replacement heifers to join the breeding herd. Cattle with thick coats can still be freeze branded – for best effect the brand can simply be clipped before calving to aid identification. The position of the brand can be tailored to how the cattle are kept. If housed loosely or calved at grass, a brand on the side of the thigh may be best while for cattle kept tighter or frequently run through races, a higher brand may be more appropriate.