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Lisa Whitfield - Farm Vet Services

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Lisa Whitfield - Farm Vet Services

Independent Veterinary and Animal Health Technical Services for Farms and Lifestyle Blocks She gained her Masters degree in Veterinary Medicine in 2016.
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Lisa has worked with all farm animal species during her 15 years as a Veterinarian, including regularly working with cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and South American camelids (Alpaca and Llama). She loves using ultrasound in large animal cases to assist in making the most accurate diagnosis for each patient. She is also a highly experienced dairy vet, with particular expertise in managing mastitis in

dairy cattle. Lisa is accredited by the National Mastitis Advisory Committee to provide Mastitis and Milk Quality services to Fonterra and will provide milk quality services to any dairy farms in need of advice. She has developed her own low-cost milk culture technique to enable farms to dive further into managing high cell count and clinical mastitis cases. Lisa completed a 12-month internship in Equine Clinics at Massey University, which provided a great skillset for veterinary care of horses. Lisa established Lisa Whitfield Farm Vet Services in 2020/21. The business has now grown into a sustainable, service-driven, mobile large animal veterinary business. In addition to her veterinary career, Lisa spent 3 years working fulltime on 260 cow dairy farm in the Manawatu as a farm assistant. This experience gave her valuable understanding of the practical nature of farming, and underpinned the seasonal cycles driving decision-making for animal health on farms. Education and sharing knowledge is her passion, and in addition to the educational content written for the LWFVS page, Lisa has written regular 'Vets Voice' articles for the New Zealand Dairy Exporter, covering off health topics and case studies relevant to dairy cattle.

15/08/2024

When you're nearly home after a long, busy day, but you spot someone needing a ride to Wildbase hospital...all the best to this young Harrier Hawk which was struggling with a broken leg on the side of the road after being clipped by vehicle near Bunnythorpe 🌟🌟🌟

08/08/2024

Why did she die?

We were recently called to examine this 9 year old crossbred dairy cow which had died unexpectedly, approximately 48 hours after calving.

The cow had been found flat out with milk fever in the morning, and had responded very well to calcium treatment, standing up on her own following treatment. She had been found bright and responsive but unable to stand in the afternoon, and had died soon after, before further help could be given.

For peace of mind, the farm requested a post mortem to find out why she had died so abruptly.

On examination, the cow was in good condition, she had no external signs of disease, and no mastitis.

When we opened her up, her abdomen showed no signs of disease, with her gut healthy and pink, her uterus clear of infection, and her liver and kidneys normal in appearance.

In her chest however, we found a large volume of fluid surrounding her lungs. Her lungs were mottled with areas which were dense, dark red, fluid filled and angry. In the small airways we found a lot of green feed material consistent with aspiration pneumonia.

Aspiration pneumonia is a major risk for cows which experience milk fever. Milk fever, which is when blood calcium levels fall extremely low, means that muscular control is lost throughout the body, including the ability for the cow to protect her airways with loss of the swallow reflex. If the cow regurgitates while she is unconscious, a large volume of fluid can accidentally be inhaled into the airways.

The stomach content of cows is full of digestive bacteria for breaking down their feed. When this fluid ends up somewhere that it shouldn't be, such as in the lungs, a massive inflammatory response is generated, and severe toxemia can develop. Death can follow rapidly, even if treatment is able to be administered in time. If only a small amount of fluid in inhaled, some cows can overcome the infection and survive.

Unfortunately for this cow, while she had responded well to her milk fever treatment, the damage had already been done before calcium was administered.

05/08/2024

We recently had a visit from this 4 week old Suffolk X ewe lamb, which had been seen lame when coming in at docking.

The lamb was brought to us for examination as the owners were worried about joint ill. The lamb was in good condition and weighed 6.8kg.

On examination we found the carpal joint on the front right leg was swollen, and the lamb was reluctant to stand on this leg. All of the other joints felt ok and didn’t appear painful.

The lamb also had a high temperature of 40.6 degrees celsius.

A swollen joint combined with fever are both consistent with joint ill in a lamb this age.

The lamb was given a long course of antibiotics to treat the infection. It was also provided with a course of pain relief to help reduce inflammation, fever and damage in the infected joint.

Joint ill has a number of factors which contribute to the development of the disease.

The most important of these factors is failure of the lamb to get sufficient volume of high quality colostrum within the first few hours of life - there are 3 issues at play here:

1) Colostrum volume consumed
2) Quality of colostrum consumed
3) Timing of colostrum intake after birth

All 3 of these issues are very hard to control in an paddock-based lambing system where much of the care at lambing is hands-off. However, it can help aid in decision making for lambs which are having trouble getting up and going at birth.

When stepping in to supplement colostrum, lambs need to receive 50ml/kg of colostrum within a few hours of birth, and a total of 200ml/kg of colostrum within 24 hours of birth. Colostrum used should ideally be over a brix of 26%, but a minimum of 22%. If ewes colostrum is not available, then high quality cow or goat colostrum is a good substitute.

If you have a lamb which is having trouble at birth, such as struggling for acceptance by the dam, is weak or cold, or if the ewe isn't very well in milk at the time of lambing, then intervening to supplement the lamb with high quality colostrum within the first few hours of birth is a great way to prevent joint ill and many other lamb diseases.

05/07/2024

Dairy Farmers!

You've probably been using this tool your whole life, but are you sure you are using it correctly?

And do you know the cost of each test if you are using them properly?

The RMT paddle is a simple bit of kit, which provides you with valuable information regarding a cows milk quality - especially over the calving season.

When the RMT solution mixes with high cell count milk, a slime is formed. When you read the paddle, you are looking for any wells which contain this slimy milk. By moving the paddle and tipping it left to right, the slime becomes visible as it is less viscous that unreactive milk.

If you think you already know it all, or if you think you might just learn something new - read below and then test yourself with the videos at the end...

🐥🐥🐥

04/07/2024

Life and Death

We recently received a call to examine a goat who had given birth well before she was due.

The doe had a recorded mating date, and had been scanned pregnant and carrying at least two fetuses, which were due in one months time. She had successfully reared kids for the last two seasons.

The owners had just found a freshly aborted fetus in the shelter, and called us to check on the does condtion.

On examination, the doe was bright and alert. She had a fever of 40.1 degrees celsius. Ultrasound showed the uterus was now empty. Within some fetal membranes which were still attached at the does back end, we found a second, much smaller and decaying fetus.

As the doe had a fever, she was treated with antibiotics and antiinflammatories to deal with any uterine infection which was developing as a result of the abortion and retained fetal membranes.

She will be kept seperate from the other pregnant does on the property until she has stopped discharging fluid from her uterus.

Abortion is not an uncommon event in farm animals.
In goats, there are many, many possible causes - including infectious agents such as protozoa (eg Toxoplasma), viruses (eg Caprine Herpesvirus) and bacterial infections (eg Listeria), poisonous plants (eg Goats Rue), placental insufficiency, spontaneous pregnancy loss and stress-induced pregnancy loss.

In this case, the smaller fetus likely died some time ago, and, regardless of the cause, this has resulted in the loss of the whole pregnancy.

It can be difficult and costly to try and determine the cause of an abortion. If this is to be attempted though, the fetus and any available placental membranes should be collected and promptly examined by a vet, so that samples can be tested at the laboratory.

If there are a number of animals at risk, the information gained from testing is likely to give a lot of value to a farm system if a cause for abortion can be determined. For example, some infectious diseases there are vaccines available (eg Toxovax) which will prevent pregnancy losses if the flock is exposed to a preventable disease.

In this case, no further investigation of the abortion was undertaken.

Abortion has the potential to affect the future fertility of the affected dam. By promptly treating this does uterine infection and retained placenta, we give her the best chance of healing up, and time will tell whether she is able to become pregnant again.
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All the best to this lovely young doe during her recovery 🌟🌟🌟

03/07/2024

The Hardware Store

We were recently called to examine this rising 2-year-old Belgian Blue x Steer which had lost weight at the last monthly weigh session, and was going downhill quite quickly.

The steer had become very quiet and could be approached easily in the paddock.

When we arrived, the steer was in a paddock nearby and did not have the energy to walk to the yard. When we tried to encourage him to move, he walked a few steps then just sat down.

On examination, the steer had a normal temperature, he had his neck stretched out and was open mouth breathing. His lung sounds were harsh, and it was hard to hear his heart. He had some fluid building up under his jaw and a large area of fluid built up under the skin around his brisket.

So what was going on? Was this a bad case of woody tongue? Severe pneumonia? Or something else?

Ultrasound was used to find out what was going on.

On ultrasound, the steer had mild inflammatory changes in the right lung field, and a 2cm abscess visible in the left lung field. The signs in the lungs were definitely not normal, but not bad enough to cause the steer to be so ill.

We looked to ultrasound his heart, and instead found a large area of fluid where the heart should be - the pericardial sac which surrounds the heart was distended with fluid, and a 1cm thick mat of fibrin could be seen attached inside the sac. Oh dear.

The steer was suffering from an advanced case of Hardware disease.

Hardware disease is so-called because it happens when cattle inadvertently eat things like discarded fencing staples, mown-up fragments of wire, or other sharp objects.

When a cow eats something like a fragment of wire, it can sit in the stomach, and with some unfortunate luck, the wire punctures through the stomach wall. Once through the stomach wall, it can begin tracking through the body. The most frequent path is for the hardware to go is toward the liver, the lungs and even as far as the heart.

Whereever the object travels, a tract of bacteria follows, and massive infection develops.

Hardware disease is a terrible condition for cattle to develop, and almost invariably results in the death of the animal. In the case of this steer, we ended his suffering just a few minutes after this video taken.

There are two things you can do to minimise the risk of your cattle developing Hardware disease:

1) Clean up and discard any loose sharp objects on your properties, such as old wire, loose fencing staples and other such objects.

2) Administer a rumen magnet into each animal

Rumen magnets are strong magnets which are adminstered as a bolus down the throat. The magnet sits in the stomach of the cow and will pick up any stray pieces of metal which a cow may accidentally eat. The magnet stops the metal from penetrating the stomach wall.

Rumen magnets are very cheap - only about $4-$5 per animal, and given once they should last the life of the animal.

When you take into account the cost of losing one animal to Hardware disease, you could buy a lot of rumen magnets to prevent this disease from occuring.

The worst case of Hardware disease I have seen was when the farmer lost 8 of his cows to it after a piece of wire was accidentally picked up from a paddock by a mower and chopped into the silage when it was made.

Rumen magnets are very common in overseas farm systems where a lot of feed is trucked in, and fragments of metal can easily end up mixed into the feed ration. When you add up how many fencing staples and how many metres of wire are on our properties here in NZ, it makes you think - shouldn't we give this simple form of protection to our cattle here?

19/06/2024

Would you recognise the signs of Listeria in your sheep or goat?

Circling disease in small ruminants requires rapid recognition of the problem and quick action by yourselves, the owners, if an affected animal is to have a chance of surviving it.

Circling disease is caused by a brain infection with the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes. The bacteria gains access to the nervous system through small abrasions in the mouth, such as from eating rough feed, or if the animal is cutting new teeth.

The disease progresses rapidly in small ruminants, and will often result in death within 48 hours of the onset of signs. This is much faster than the disease progression in cattle.

Early signs to watch out for are depression, isolation from the flock and disorientation.

Affected animals develop facial paralysis of one side of their face. This means they lose all muscle tone and sensation in the facial muscles on the affected side.

The ewe in this video had first been noticed to be unwell the evening before presenting to us. She had been found 'lost' in the paddock, and was walking in circles. This had progressed to recumbency by the end of the day.

Unfortunately, despite an attempt at treatment, she died only a few hours after this video was taken.

If you are worried your sheep or goat may be suffering from Listeria infection, please get in touch with us as soon as possible - every hour counts!

13/06/2024

Picked up some new certificates from the printers today, an awesome quick service from Streamline Print & Mail to get my design onto paper. Thank you!

04/06/2024

We are so lucky to have met so many cool goats over the last few years, and pictured below are just a few of the colourful characters we have had the pleasure of working with during this time.

If you are a goat owner, or are considering keeping goats, there is a disease you need to know about, but may not have heard of - called CAE.

CAE stands for Caprine Arthritis and Encephalitis. It is a viral disease that is quite common in the NZ goat population, and is something we recommend checking your goats for.

The CAE virus is spread from goat to goat, with particularly high rates of spread at an early age when a kid receives its essential 1st colostrum from an infected doe. It can also be spread by direct contact between goats, as well as through blood-contaminated equipment such as needles.

The virus has two distinct forms, which are alluded to by its name - causing arthritis in adult goats, and encephalitis in kid goats.

Early-onset arthritis is the most common form of the disease seen. It usually affects goats from only a few years old, although it can develop in (goat) kids under 1 year old. Affected goats will develop swollen joints, particularly common is for them to have swollen front knees. They progressively become lame from joint inflammation and this will often mean euthanisia is required before the goats reach old age.

Other signs seen in adult goats include chronic pneumonia, chronic mastitis and ill-thrift or weight loss.

The 'encephalitis' form of the diease usually affects (goat) kids in their first 6 months of life, although it can affect older animals. It causes weakness, difficulty walking, particularly in the hindlimbs, and can result in the progressive development of paresis and paralyisis.

Many goats carry the virus, but not all will develop clinical signs. Dairy breeds are at higher risk of contracting the virus than meat or fibre breeds.

A diagnosis of CAE is made when a goat presents with classic clinical signs and returns a positive blood test. However, testing your goat to know whether they have been exposed to the virus is an easy way to understand their risk of developing the disease.

If you have goats, and would like to discuss CAE or any other aspects of goat care, or would like them to receive a regular health check-up, get in touch with us, we are here to help 🌟🌟🌟

01/06/2024

Winter is coming

The 1st of June marks the official start of winter, and for many in the Manawatu, pasture growth has been slow through autumn. Prolonged dry spells mean that winter pasture is in short supply.

With colder weather, grass growth rates have slowed even further, and you cannot budget on any significant grass growth rates over the next 3 months.

In response to slowed grass growth, and if you have limited grass ahead of you, your stock should be held back from consuming ad-lib grass, and supplemented with preserved forages such as hay or baleage.

So how do you choose between feeding hay or baleage? Are they the same?

Hay has lower energy content at ~8-9MjME per kilogram dry matter and generally a lower protein level than baleage.

Baleage has ~20% more energy content than hay, upto ~11kgDM, and a higher level of protein at ~17%. Good quality baleage will also have reduced wastage rates compared to hay.

The type of feed you choose to use over winter will depend on the type of stock you have to feed.

Generally speaking, animals which are growing, animals needing to gain condition, or animals which are lactating will benefit much more from feeding more baleage than hay.

Growing animals need the higher protein level, energy content and digestability of baleage, and will physically be unable to consume and digest enough hay to be able to grow.

For youngstock, good quality baleage will always be superior to hay, but bear in mind that poor quality or poorly made baleage can have low palatibility and low energy levels and can be a worse choice than top quality hay.

Animals which are not growing, or not needing to gain weight (or which are overweight) will do well being supplemented with hay.

If you don't understand why hay and baleage are different, or need help working out how much to feed your animals over winter, please get in touch - we are here to help!

29/05/2024

A Lucky Near-Miss

We were recently called to see Evie, a warmblood mare who had developed low grade lameness in her front right leg and had lost some hair on the back of one of her pasterns.

On examination, the hairless area extended over one of her heel bulbs and up onto her pastern. Her heel was very tender to touch and was very swollen.

After cleaning out the hoof it quickly became apparent what the problem was - a 3cm long nail had become partially embedded under her hoof, right next to where the shoe ended on her heel!

Nails getting stuck in the sole of a horse are extremely serious and can result in severe lameness and cause life-threatening infection in the many vital structures within the hoof. If you ever find a nail embedded in the sole of your horse, it is advisable to leave it in place if it safe to do so, and get your vet out immediately to assess where the nail is tracking to.

Luckily for Evie, the nail was only partly embedded and was being protected from going deeper by being right next to the end of her shoe. The nail was sitting in the digital cushion and causing a low grade infection under the skin. If the nail had been 1cm deeper or had embedded more towards the frog, the situation would have been much much more serious.

The nail was able to be removed, and Evie was given antibiotics to treat the infection, as well as pain relief to keep her comfortable. Thankfully she is on the road to recovery now, walking soundly and her heel is no longer painful - one lucky horse!

21/05/2024

State of Play

Last week we undertook some routine trace element testing in a herd of dairy cows to assess whether they were in need of any extra mineral supplementation.

As part of this, we performed liver biopsies on 10 randomly selected cows from the herd, and blood samples from 6 cows to check their copper and selenium stores.

Copper is stored in the liver and released from there into the bloodstream. Blood levels will only drop once the liver store of copper has run out, so we use a liver sample to accurately assess the stored copper levels and preempt any potential deficiencies.

Performing a liver biopsy is relatively easy in cattle - a tiny 5mm incision made under local anaesthesia allows us to biopsy the liver, which sits against the body wall under the ribs on the right side of a cow.

The procedure only takes a few minutes for each cow once the biopsy site is prepared. The cows are provided with antiinflammatory pain relief to ensure minimal discomfort after the procedure.

Once done, the incision is closed with a single surgical staple and they are able to return to the herd right away.

Copper deficiency can have wide-ranging effects in cattle, from poor reproductive performance to reduced milk production, poor body condition and growth rates and the development of anemia.

Selenium can be accurately assessed from a blood or liver sample. Selenium is another very important trace element, and deficiency can affect milk production and reproductive performace, as well as cause the birth weak calves.

On the counter, excessive supplementation of trace elements is not only a waste of money, but can also lead to toxicity, and in the worst case the death of animals.

Assessing your trace element supplementation program using the right tests provides an important gauge on animal health and performance and can avert problems before they occur. If you would like to discuss the mineral requirements of your stock or to organise testing, get in touch with me.

Luckily this herd came back with an A+ for their copper and selenium levels which means their current trace element program is working well! 🌟🌟🌟

20/05/2024

Who is the cutest of them all

Today we had the pleasure of meeting this lovely young lad, an 8 week old Huntaway pup called Duke.

Duke was due for his first puppy vaccination, and so we were able include Dukes first checks and vaccination as part of the visit when we were seeing some other animals on the farm,

Duke is destined to be a stock dog on a large sheep and beef station. Farm dogs don't often leave the farm, but there are some big teams of dogs at work there, so protecting Duke from the risk of Parvo and other infectious diseases such as Leptospirosis is still just as important for him as it is for town dogs.

Being able to include the vaccination as part of other work also reduces the risk of exposure to disease from Duke having to travel off farm, and saves the farmer a lot of time in their busy schedule as well.

Duke passed all of his checks with flying colours and we look forward to seeing his development over the next few years.

If you have farm dogs and farm cats requiring their annual vaccinations, we are happy to include them in our day to day work when we are in the area 🌟

13/05/2024

Going back to our bucket of pottles from last week...some great guesses there!

There were 560 pottles in the bucket which represent a milk sample from every lactating quarter of 85% of the 170 spring calvers in a 320 cows split calving Friesian herd.

Cows were included if they had had any cell count above 150,000 on any herd test during the season for mixed age cows, and 120,000 for heifers. 24 cows were not sampled as they had a squeaky clean cell count history this season.

Cell counts from the cows sampled on their most recent herd test, from the 30th of April, ranged from 980,000 down to only 35,000.

So what was the outcome of our milk cultures...?

11/05/2024

What a great show being had in the skies tonight. Enjoy the Aurora everyone!

10/05/2024

Take a guess - how many milk samples (5ml pottles) does it take to fill a 20L bucket to 2/3s full?

07/05/2024

Just another evening watching for some light entertainment, but a timely reminder that May is a great month to tidy up the hooves and claws of your stock!

Wet winter months are just around the corner and not only will your animals cope better if they have their hooves in good shape, but yarding also becomes difficult, making a big mess once the ground is saturated.

One of the goals with hoof trimming is to 'do no harm' - so if you aren't confident with that you know how to tackle the hooves of your stock, why not let us to sort them out for you?

01/05/2024

While winter hasn’t yet got underway, did you know that now is the time to be thinking about spring?

It has been a tough autumn with prolonged dry weather keeping grass growth to a minimum, and many properties around the district are not positioned where they normally would be for feed heading into winter. You may have already taken a decent bite out of your stored winter feed just to get through the autumn, and may need to buy in more feed to top up the winter supplies.

If you have ewes which are expecting lambs this spring, planning your feed requirements around when they are due to lamb is really important. Every year through July and August and into September, we see sleepy sickness cases in ewes due to inadequate feed intake on properties which have run out of grass.

The prognosis for a ewe with sleepy sickness is really not great, and so avoiding getting into a situation where ewes aren't getting enough feed in the 4 weeks prior to lambing is a really important consideration right now.

Hay and carbodhytrate-based feeds will only go a small way to keeping a ewe on her feet in the weeks prior to lambing, with a plentiful supply of good grass being much more important.

Sleepy sickness is a metabolic disease where the fetuses the ewe is carrying require more and more energy as they get close to full-term, at a time when the ewe struggles to eat enough to provide for them.

To avoid this, eating needs to be very easy for ewes, with additional supplements such as lick blocks there to supplement energy in the diet rather than be the primary source of energy because grass isn’t available.

If you are short on feed at the moment, you need to take action right now to start building a feed wedge ahead of you, as grass growth slows dramatically with the onset of colder weather, shorter days and once the wet weather finally sets in.

Do you know if all of your ewes are pregnant? Are they carrying singles or multiples?

Having pregnancy testing performed on your flock will give you valuable information that might help you to decide on whether there are animals in your flock which don’t need to be there. Empty ewes have the lowest feed demand if they are being kept rather than being culled, and should be managed separately from the pregnant ewes over winter and spring. Ewes carrying multiples should be identified as these are at the highest risk of developing sleepy sickness so are the top priority for feed come spring. And remember not all of the ewes lamb at the same time – if the ram has been out for 6 weeks, you need to budget for the full length of lambing with your feed plan. Pregnancy can be readily detected 40 days after mating, so think about when this fits into your breeding plan.

Ewes which are old, over-conditioned, underweight, or with health problems such as worms, facial eczema or pneumonia will also struggle, and identifying these animals now can help with formulating a plan to get them through spring.

If you need a hand to work out a good stocking rate for your property, to formulate a feed plan or to get pregnancy testing and health checks done for your ewes, please get in touch with us – we are here to help!

28/04/2024

Sids Story

We recently had the pleasure of meeting Sid, a very sociable 5 year old Kune Kune pig with some.very long tusks.

Sid was in need of some dental work, as he had a new friend - a 12 week old Kune Kune piglet called Moe. With a new young friend in Moe, the owners didn't want Moe being inadvertently injured by Sids over-long and sharp tusks once the pair were fully integrated. Moe had joined Sid, as late last year, Sid had lost his previous friend to a rare form of Kune Kune dental fistula, an oro-nasal fistula.

In order to trim such impressive tusks as Sid had, we sedated him to ensures the cuts were made in the correct place. The tusks were trimmed about 1cm away from the gum line so that the pulp cavity wasn't exposed, to avoid a nasty infection.

As part of the visit, we were also asked to trim Sids claws, and to check his mouth for any signs of dental fistula formation, which had so recently resulted in the loss of Sids last companion.

Kune Kunes are proned to having poor dentition due to their breed having a short face with crowded, poorly aligned molar teeth. This malalignment results in feed jamming into the gums around or between poorly aligned teeth, and leading to erosion of a hole into the jaw bone itself. Further feed subsequently packs into the jaw bone and eventually it it bursts out of the bone as an abscess somewhere on the side of face, often near the eye. The fistula is unable to heal as feed is constantly being packed into the hole in the mouth whenever the pig eats. While outwardly stoic, affected pigs will be in a lot of pain, as the bone of their jaw is destroyed. Dental fistulas usually show up in Kune Kunes between 3 and 6 years of age.

So, after trimming Sids claws, we had a good look around his mouth, and were shocked with what we found.

Along with very poor dental alignment, Sid had large cavities at the back of his lower jaw on both sides, where feed was packed firmly into pockets of his cheeks. On the left hand side, directly below the pocket, a deep hole could be felt entering the jaw immediately behind the last molar. My heart sank.

Dental fistulas are one of the most common problems I see in Kune Kune pigs. They are a heartbreaking problem which results in significant suffering, often over a long period of time for the affected pigs. They invariably result in euthanasia due to poor health from chronic pain and infection which is currently untreatable. As it had been for Sids old friend, so Sid was in the midst of developing a fistula.

This was a heartbreaking turn of events. You don't expect, going into a routine procedure, to end up having to break the news that a beloved pet has an untreatable health issue.

Sid was Kune Kune #3 for his owners, with both of the previous pigs having been lost due to dental fistulas. Having experienced first hand what happens to pigs with fistulas, they knew exactly what Sid was facing.

Medical management of fistulas is often attempted, but is a fruitless and expensive waste of time. And at this stage, surgical treatment cannot correct the fistula, prolonging life for not more than a year or two with a painful jaw which has been destroyed by the disease.

After a few days of tough deliberation, Sids owners made the brave decision to euthanise Sid before he suffered, and now sadly Sid the Kune Kune is no longer with us.

His owners have agreed to share Sids story as they want more people to know about this devastating disease before taking the leap into Kune Kune ownership, and experiencing the loss they have been through.

Kune Kunes are great companion animals and are real characters, but this fatal flaw in their breed means too many are being lost before they reach old age. While fear of dental fistulas shouldn't preclude the ownership of this breed, awareness of it means you can be more vigilant for the health and welfare of your Kune Kune, including screening for this disease whenever the opportunity arises.

RIP Sid ❤️

Address

1293a Roberts Line
Palmerston North
4478

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Monday	7am - 7pm
Tuesday	7am - 7pm
Wednesday	7am - 7pm
Thursday	7am - 7pm
Friday	7am - 7pm

Telephone

+6421770685

Website

http://www.lwfvs.co.nz/

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A callout was required for this 10 week old calf because it was behaving strangely. You might be surprised by what was wrong with it - post your guesses in the comments below!

When is Pneumonia more than just Pneumonia?

When is Pneumonia more than just Pneumonia? I was recently called to examine a beef heifer who had been off colour and was lagging behind the mob. The heifer had been spotted as the mob was being moved, so I was called out to see what was going on. When I got there, the heifer was nibbling on the grass in the yard and she was in good body condition. Her temperature was ok, and most of her examination was unremarkable, however, her breathing was shallow and fast, and it was clear there wasn’t a lot of air moving back and forth from the lungs when listening with the stethoscope. When I did an ultrasound of her chest, it was apparent there was some pretty serious problem going on, as she had fluid around her lungs, and inflammation on the surface. I diagnosed her with severe pneumonia, and along with a guarded prognosis, the heifer was treated with strong antibiotics and anti-inflammatories in an attempt to save her. A few days later I got the phone call no vet likes to receive – the heifer had appeared to be doing well, but that afternoon she had rapidly gone downhill and now was unable to get up. We knew how bad her lung condition was, so there was no other option but to end her suffering. Luckily, we were able to have a post mortem done thanks to the PM team at Massey. Cases like these provide a great opportunity for student to learn about the diseases than animals suffer from, and in this case, there was plenty to learn! The heifer not only had severe pneumonia with abscesses throughout her lungs, she also had infection around heart, abscesses in her liver, and a large infected blood clot in her vena cava. This set of problems can develop as a result of overfeeding grains and other carbohydrates to animals – too much carbohydrate affects the bacteria in the gut and causes the gut wall to be inflamed. When this happens, gut bacteria can get into the bloodstream and spread into the body. Abscesses develop in the liver, and the bacteria may spread els

How satisfying does this sound? A good start sets these calves up for the rest of their lives. The first feed a calf (or lamb) has, is probably the most important meal of its life. Colostrum not only provides nourishment to give the newborn the energy to get it up and going, it also provides the calf with antibodies to help it be healthy while it's own immune system develops over the first few months of life. Colostrum quality is crucial - quality begins to diminish as soon as birth has taken place, and steadily decreases with each passing hour. In addition to this, the newborns ability to absorb the antibodies in colostrum decreases with time too. This is why its so important newborns get a good feed from their dam, or are fed with high quality colostrum if they aren't with their dam, within the first few hours of being born.

Plating Up Milk Samples To Check For Subclinical Mastitis

With the end of the milking season approaching for many, there has been a lot of milk sampling going on - in fact this week alone I've plated up over 350 milk samples to put through the incubator in order to see what bacteria the herds sampled have. I thought I'd share this video which shows how easily microbiology can be performed when it comes to mastitis - it may surprise some of you just how easy it is to do. This video was taken fresh from collecting some samples during milking - cow poo, overalls, gumboots and all. Milk sampling allows for drastic reductions in dry cow antibiotic use as we can find which cows and specifically which quarters will actually benefit from being treated. Rates of less than 3% of quarters dried off actually needing dry cow therapy are the sort of numbers we are dealing with in herds with great milk quality (Seaonal SCC 100,000 or below)

Down the microscope today - meet Haemonchus contortus - more commonly referred to as Barbers Pole worm. For anyone familiar with this worm, you might already understand the implications of me being able to make this video, however, for everyone else, please read on. Barbers pole is a worm which resides in the last stomach (the abomasum) of Sheep, Goats and Alpaca. It is a worm which consumes the blood of its host. High burdens will result in severe anemia as the worm population consumes more blood than the host can make. This video was made today, after a callout to see a flock of lambs in which a significant number have died in the last few days. In order to be able to make this video, you can conclude I found the worm in the abomasum of its host, who had unfortunately just passed away in front of us. The lambs had rapidly lost condition, had dirty tails and subsequently became weak before dying. All of this, despite them being drenched a month ago with a good drench. I have been to multiple calls this month to see animals suffering from the effects of this worm. With the ongoing warm autumn weather we are having, we may have a big problem developing with Haemonchus over the next month or two. More to follow...

For anyone interested in the behaviour of animals who have clinical facial eczema, this video shows Dud the steer just before I examined him. You can see he is irritated, shaking his head, and pressing his face into the side of his pen-mates:

This video shows sheep behaviour with clinical facial eczema - almost manic head shaking, irritation, pain and rubbing. Shortly afterward the lamb would lie down on the ground, hunched up and trying to hide from the light. If you don't know about facial eczema or other preventable diseases of sheep or any other lifestyle block animals, get in touch with me and I can help you

This week has seen a couple of timely reminders for animal health problems to keep an eye out for at this time of year. It may seem that with the warm weather and fine days, that nothing should really go wrong with your stock. However, this week I have seen a case of flystrike in a lamb, and an outbreak of coughing calves, from lungworm. The fly struck lamb has a couple of problems which made it an attractive proposition for blowflies to lay on. It was scouring, and also had an improperly docked tail that was festering. Both of these conditions are very attractive to blowflies. Maggots are not necessarily easy to spot on sheep. It wasn't until the wool was clipped from around the back end of this lamb that we discovered the maggots. It is a timely reminder to keep a close eye on your stock, and to get them tidied up for summer. Other signs to look for include sheep rubbing their backs on fences, and dark staining to areas of the wool, particularly over the back by the tail. It is lungworm season in the Manawatu. Typically outbreaks of coughing in calves is seen between November and January. This often coincides weaning, which is a time when their immunity is low, making them vulnerable. Usually weaning is a good time to give calves their first drench if they haven't had one previously. For efficacy against lungworm, ensure the drench contains Levamisole, and also be very careful about dosing to the correct weight, as drenches can be toxic if a significant overdose is given. Lungworm infection can cause severe reaction in the lungs, sufficient to result in severe pneumonia or death. Testing for lungworm is best done with a fecal sample, which is examined for larvae. Did you know that lungworm larvae are ingested and migrate from the gut, through the tissues of the body, to the lungs where they mature and reproduce? The early sign that there may be a problem brewing in your calves is subtle coughing in the mob (but not related to feeding time). The cou