Lisa Whitfield - Farm Vet Services

10/04/2025

A Staggering Sight

Many of you will be in the same boat as us, with limited grass available for your stock following the prolonged dry spells over late summer and as we head well into autumn.

While feed shortages, worms and facial eczema are very high on the list of animal health priorities at the moment, there is another fungal disease you may have seen some of your stock suffering from recently.

Have you noticed any of your livestock or horses showing signs of:

- a wobbly, drunken gait
- a wobbly head
- twitchy eye movements
- extra sensitivity to sounds

If so they may be suffering from Ryegrass Staggers.

Ryegrass Staggers is a disease caused by the effects of neurotoxins which are produced by a fungus which thrives in tough autumn conditions and stressed pastures. It grows in the dry, stressed grass which is all that is available in a drought.

We have been monitoring one of our own alpaca recently. Kaspia is a 2 year old female Suri. For the last 4 weeks, she has shown mild signs of ryegrass staggers as seen in the first video. Whereas the other alpaca can all stand perfectly still, Kaspia has a swagger and wobble at the moment, when she is trying to be still. This is despite shifting her to fresh pastures and giving plenty of hay and baleage as supplement to her diet.

While ryegrass staggers is not often fatal, the biggest cause of death is misadventure - this is because stress or sudden stimulation causes an abrupt worsening of neurological signs, and can result in debilitated animals drowning, getting cast or caught up in fences if they lose control in the wrong spot.

Kaspia had the misfortune of an accidental touch of an electric fence the other day, and we were there to witness what happened - a dramatic deterioration in condition, and as you can see in the second video, it is easy to understand how misadventure can occur.

Thankfully, this type of episode only lasts for a few minutes, and after calmness returned, Kaspia got back on her feet and walked away with just mild wobbles. She is doing well and we have changed the paddock around so she can't accidentally touch the electric wire.

If you have stock suffering from ryegrass staggers, make sure they are kept in secure, flat paddocks where they have a low risk of misadventure (eg avoid drains, ponds and hilly areas). Feed plenty of forage supplement such as hay and baleage, and check on them regularly to make sure they are safe. If one of your animals have the misfortune of having an bad episode, make sure you stay calm and only intervene if you need to keep them safe from something - it is dangerous to get close to a large animal when they are not in control of themselves, most especially with cattle and horses.

02/04/2025

We ran into bad traffic on the way home today! Its terrible the congestion on the roads some days!

26/03/2025

These Sheep may look down upon us mere mortals most days (when they can see down through the clouds and weather) but does living the high life keep them safe from Facial Eczema?

Absolutely not!

Unfortunately living at elevation does not mean there is no risk from facial eczema, and we come across this as another misconception on a regular basis.

We have found facial eczema spores in all pastures tested upto 500m elevation (and haven't yet found a higher hill to test).

Today, we took grass samples in pastures on the Manawatu side of the Tararua ranges, ranging in elevation from 200m to 350m above sea level.

The spore counts ranged from 20,000 (safe except for Alpaca) to 140,000 (high risk), and none of the paddocks tested came back at 0. The average for the area tested today was 60,000.

If you live in the hills and assume that your stock are safe living the high life, think again!

On the bright side, collecting pasture samples from a property such as this is an amazing part of our job, and we have been testing pastures here for a number of seasons now.

If you need a hand with getting samples collected and tested because you don't have the availability to do it, let us know - we are happy to help make it happen!

21/03/2025

Like us, your cats may have been asking you to light the fire inside some nights recently. At this time of year the night temperatures are regularly dipping below 10 degrees. But does the onset of colder autumn weather mean Facial Eczema is no longer a risk to your cattle, sheep and alpaca?

Unfortunately the answer is a resounding no!

It is a common misconception that a few nights under 10 degrees celsius spell the end of the danger period for facial eczema spores, but this is far from correct.

Today alone we have done the two highest spore counts I've ever done in my 16-year career.

Kairanga = 800,000 (extreme risk)
Turitea = 475,000 (extreme risk)
Bunnythorpe = 350,000 (extreme risk)

Colder weather in Autumn does not drop the spore counts, in fact it pushes them higher as the fungi prepares itself to survive winter by throwing everything into its reproductive cycle to ensure it survives to next year.

Until we see frosts coming through, usually in early to mid May, the spores will happily persist in your pasture, and spore counts will continue to rise for a number of weeks yet.

For a paddock with a spore count of 800,000, a single day grazing that pasture with no effective protection or prevention strategy in place, can result in an animal developing acute clinical signs of severe Facial Eczema.

Please don't become complacent with Facial Eczema management this season just because its colder now - unfortunately the worst of it is still ahead of us.

We offer spore counting for $12.50 + GST per grass sample so if you want to see where the risk is currently on your property, get samples to us and we can help you evaluate the risk to your stock.

17/03/2025

Worm Warning

We are seeing an unprecedented level of sheep, goats and alpaca suffering from and dying from worms, particularly Barbers Pole, at the moment.

All three species are at risk of Barbers Pole, and need your proactive management to keep them safe.

Given the prevailing dry conditions in the Manawatu (and ironically, it is raining as I write this), which is contributing to a severe feed deficit on the majority of properties we see around the district, there are many animals which are experiencing a high level of hunger stress at the moment. Worms are taking advantage of this!

Throw into the mix the unstable temperatures that have been around recently, which is resulting in animals experiencing cold stress on a regular basis (as well as suffering from diseases such as pneumonia or facial eczema). Worms are taking advantage of this!

For an animal to mount a defence against worms, they need to be healthy and able to meet all of their physiological demands, so that their immune system is strong enough to put up a fight. The vast majority of animals that are happy and healthy and stress-free, are more than capable of taking care of worms on a day to day basis. Typically, animals which are particularly vulnerable to becoming wormy in the face of a challenge are those who have additional demands on them - the young (growing), the old (geriatrics), pregnant and lactating females, and those who are thrifty (suffer from diseases affecting their long term health).

Drenching all of your animals every month will not stop them from dying of worms these days, because unfortunately this out-dated and overused strategy has allowed many worms (Barbers Pole in particular) to develop drench resistance, meaning that the most drenches are no longer as effective as they once were. Instead, your grazing system needs to be set up to support your stock to be healthy and stress-free.

To achieve a balanced grazing system, no matter the size of your property, it is important to:

1) Not overstock your property
2) Ensure your animals don’t go hungry for long periods of time – supplementary feed with suitable feed for the class of stock.
3) Cross graze your paddocks when possible utilising cattle or horses to clean up sheep, goat and alpaca pastures at strategic times of the year.
4) Regularly monitor the health of your stock – body condition check, diarrhoea monitoring and mucous membrane monitoring.
5) Utilise effective drenches, only for animals that need it!

Please - if you have not had a close look at your stock recently, bring them into the yards in the next few days - check their body condition, check for diarrhoea and check their mucous membrane colour.

And if you have sick animals or need advice, please get in touch – we are here to help!

Providing animal health services for all farms and lifestyle blocks in the Manawatu

12/02/2025

Flystrike Warning - Manawatu

Over the last week we have been seeing our first cases of flystrike as the fly season gets underway.

Flystrike is a rapidly progressive condition and needs to be addressed very quickly. From the time the fly lays eggs, to the time there are active maggots on an animal is only 1 to 2 days.

If you are seeing signs of fly activity, particularly around your sheep, please get them in and take a close look at them as soon as possible, rather than waiting to see if they'll come right.

Keeping on top of shearing, crutching and dagging will help a lot with prevention of flystrike, but also the use of long acting pour-on insecticides will be necessary in many cases.

Fly struck areas usually show up as dark grey/brown, wet areas of fleece on the back or flanks of the animal, or around the tail. Wounds and daggy tails are particularly attractive. You need to get hold of the animal, part the fleece and look at the skin to be able to check if there are maggots or fly eggs present.

Large and deep areas of fly strike also pose a risk of infection and septicemia so if your animal is showing signs of being sick, please get it examined so it can be treated with everything it needs to save it.

Sheep and alpaca are particularly at risk of being struck, however any animal which is debilitated and not able to ward off the flies can be affected. One of the worst cases of flystrike I have seen was in a very old dog which couldn't get move well enough to stop the flies from landing on it.

It is also nuisance biting-fly season - biting flies can hassle your stock so much that their feed intake, growth rates and milk production can be affected.

If you would like advice on managing your stock against flies, or if need help with treatment, please get in touch with us.

06/02/2025

The Facial Eczema Microclimate

Yesterday we decided to spore count our whole property as a demonstration, and for your benefit. This was done to show the microclimates which can exist on the small scale of your lifestyle block. These microclimates can have a profound impact on the welfare of your stock this time of year, with the Facial Eczema fungus lurking.

Our whole property of 4.5Ha would fit within 1 paddock on a larger farm. However, as the image shows, our property is divided up into 9 paddocks, ranging in size from 1.2Ha down to 0.04Ha. We have a number of small mobs of animals including 2 in-milk cows with calves at foot, some beef cattle, 1 sheep, an alpaca herd, and some goats.

If you look at all of the spore count figures you will understand why we were pleased we did this exercise.

Currently our best feed goes to our 2 in-milk cows and their 4 calves. They are due to shift from paddock 3 to paddock 2, heading around the paddocks in reverse order. Unlike a large property where animals may only be in a paddock for 12-24 hours, our cows are due to be in paddock 2 for a few weeks. Our beef cattle follow the in-milk cows as a clean-up crew.

We have good pasture covers in paddock 1 and 2, but after that rations will tighten up unless we get more rain.

What do you think our action plan was for the cows and calves, based on the information presented?

30/01/2025

Hay for Horses - A Frightening Experience

There is nothing quite as satisfying as when the bare hayshed is filled with new season hay. Many of you will have freshly filled sheds after the run of good weather recently - and no doubt your animals are looking forward to a bite of it.

Surely nothing can go wrong with lovely, fresh hay!

We were recently called for an emergency visit to a horse who was very distressed.

The owner had just fed out hay for the evening, and was preparing hard feeds for her team, when she noticed her warmblood mare was having trouble. She had her neck stretched out, her neck muscles were spasming, she was coughing and making gurgling sounds and had green material mixed with clear fluid pouring out of both nostrils. She went down and tried to roll a couple of times.

Not good!

The owners made the right call to phone us right away, and we headed off to examine the mare and try to help her.

The mare had been eating her dinner - she had been given some new season hay, along with her normal old hay, as a new bale had fallen off the stack and broken open.

The fresh clover hay was so good and so easy to eat, the mare had scoffed it down, gone for a drink of water, and then realised she hadn't chewed her food properly - her oesophagus was completely blocked up with hay.

Choke!

The mare was sedated to encourage her to lower her head so the food and fluid could drain more easily. She was also given a smooth muscle relaxant to help her oesophagus relax so the impaction could pass more easily.

We passed a stomach tube through her nose and into her oesophagus, and began the long, slow process of flushing her oesophagus to unblock it. She was blocked from her throat all the way down to her stomach!

After quite some time flushing the feed out, we finally got to the bottom and were able to pass the tube all the way through into her stomach. What a relief!

The mare received an antiinflammatory to reduce pain and swelling in her throat, and would stay on this for a few days. She had her hay removed for a few days and was put onto soft mashes and green grass to allow any trauma to her aesophagus to heal with the least irritation.

She was an absolute star throughout the whole ordeal, staying calm and compliant, which made it a lot easier for us to help her.

Potential complications from an episode of choke include aspiration pneumonia, if feed gets inhaled into the lungs - so a close eye will be kept on her over the coming days to monitor for signs of pneumonia developing.

The owner has kindly agreed to let me share her story so that others can learn from this experience.

If you have a shed full of yummy new hay - take extra care when feeding it to your animals so they don't have the chance to gorge themselves. The use of haynets or slow-feeders helps to slow feed intake, and prevent a potential choke episode.

All the best to the mare as she continues her recovery! 🌟🌟🌟

28/01/2025

Spore Counts for the week upto 28 January 2025:

Bunnythorpe: 5,000-15,000
Kairanga: 5,000-25,000

If you want to know how much grass we need to do a spore count, this photo shows bread bags with 60 grams of grass in them - aim to get about half a bread bag of grass per sample, and cut the grass about 2cm above the soil.

To take a grass sample for spore counting, identify the area you want to sample, whether it is 1 paddock or areas around 1-2 hectares in size, then walk diagonally across the area cutting a handful of grass at regular intervals, such as every 6 paces.

Get the samples to us ideally on the day you have taken the sample, or contact us to see if we are in your area and we can collect them when we are coming by.

20/01/2025

Spore Counts for the week upto 20 January 2025:

Bunnythorpe (Roberts Line): 5,000-15,000
Bunnythorpe (Ashurst Rd): 0-10,000

Overall the current risk is LOW except for Alpaca.

If you own alpaca, you should be feeding full rates of Zinc pellets to them, or have sprayed your paddocks with fungicide, or at the very least be monitoring your own paddocks spore counts so that you know if they are safe for the alpaca to graze or not.

For cattle and sheep owners - if you have had your paddocks topped or mowed in the last 6 weeks, and are needing to graze them again soon, it would be advisable to perform spore counts prior to grazing, as these paddocks are much higher risk of being at dangerous levels earlier in the season.

17/01/2025

An Apple A Day - Killing Them With Kindness

It so neat at this time of year, when the fruit trees are laden and their crops are well on the way. This is the where the Lifestyle in Lifestyle Block comes from.

Our animals absolutely love this time of year too! - how satisfying is it to be able to grab windfall or damaged apples from the orchard, and have the stock come racing over for their share of the treats. Even shy animals love a juicy pear or fresh plum.

Feeding waste fruit to your animals is very satisfying, but please understand it is not without risk.

As fruit is packed with sugar, it falls into the same category as pellets, bread and lick blocks - a carbohydrate-based feed where little goes a very long way and even a little can cause debilitating disease!

Too much carbohydrate at once can make your stock very very sick. One of the most common things we see from overfeeding fruit, pellets or with free-access to molasses lick blocks, is diarrhoea. This is usually in a adult animals - f***l egg counts may show no significant parasite burden, and there is no improvement with drenching. The affected animals are often the fattest in the mob. They have an unexplained dirty back-end and diarrhoea.

While unexplained diarrhoea is the most visible sign - what is happening internally is the most damaging.
An excess of carbohydrates in the diet, especially when access is irregular, causes acidosis. Acidosis is when the pH of the rumen becomes too acidic, killing the healthy digestive bacteria in the rumen and releasing toxins throughout the body.

Acidosis can result in lameness and particularly laminitis. It can cause internal abscesses to develop and animals can die from this.

If you feed your animals as a mob, the amount that each animal gets will not be fair or shared equally - the most dominant animals will gorge themselves while the submissive animals don't get much, if any.

The same goes with fruit, except that if you have fruit trees, your stock may get access to a massive amount of carbohydrate all at once if they have unfettered or accidental access to the trees all of a sudden.

The other day during the cold spell we did some work on our yards to make it goat-proof - so the goats could have access to our hayshed for shelter, but not escape their area and help themselves to the chicken feed, or get near our dogs.

Satisfied that they could not escape at the end of an afternoons work, I let them into the area so they could shelter for the night.

Our doe Lily went straight over to the where a large Granny Smith apple tree overhangs the yard, and after finding one windfall apple on the ground, she was straight up on her back legs and reaching over 2m above herself to pick fruit and leaves off the tree. This redefined my idea of a goat-proof yard, and meant more work was required to make the area safe.

If we had left her there to help herself, she could have eaten kilos of fruit an been a very very sick goat soon after.

A lot of the lameness we see around the district in sheep, goats and cattle is caused by excessive carbohydrate feeding. Laminitis weakens support structures in the hoof, with inflammation leading to excessive hoof growth, weak hooves and ongoing issues with separation, pain and white line disease. Laminitis takes months to years to recover from.

Please be conscious of the risks of feeding lots of fruit and other carbohydrates to your stock - it may be fun, but can be fatal. In this case, an apple a day may result in a vet visit!

15/01/2025

Barbers Pole Warning! - Manawatu Clients

We are starting to see, and hear of, cases of Barbers Pole Worm in lambs at the moment.

Please be vigilant for signs of anemia - droopy ears, lack of energy, weakness, going off feed and isolating from the flock.

If you have not had your sheep in for close inspection recently, please take the time to check their body condition and mucous membrane colour soon.

Barbers Pole does not consistently cause diarrhoea so unfortunately being vigilant at the back end, for dags and diarrhoea, is not the way to spot animals affected by it.

In order to check the mucous membranes, move the lower eyelid down and press gently on the upper eyelid to slightly depress the eye so that the third eyelid becomes visible.

If the membrane colour is pink, then the sheep is not likely to be anemic. However if the mucous membranes are white, then your sheep is likely to be severely anemic and very sick.

If you are unsure about everything and need a hand with checking your sheep, please give us a call and we can come and help you.

06/01/2025

Manawatu Clients!

It's that time of the year again - our first Facial Eczema spore counts of the new year have shown low levels of spores present with counts of 5,000-10,000 here at our base on Roberts Line.

If you are an Alpaca owner, now is the time to check your own paddocks for spores and either arrange for your paddocks to have their first spray with Fungicide, or, to start them on Zinc pellets.

If you have Sheep or Cattle, we would recommend doing your first spores counts sometime in January so you still have a bit of time yet.

23/12/2024

Merry Christmas to all of you and a big thank you for all of your support for our little business! It has been another year of growth, and we have loved meeting so many friendly people in the rural Manawatu community.

Over the holiday period we are still here for you and your animals - we are operating emergency-only services for:

25-26th December
28-29 December
1-2 January

If you have an emergency with your stock over this period please phone the business number, rather than sending a message.

Outside of these dates it's business as usual if you have anything that needs looking at.

We hope you all have the chance to relax and get in some recharge time with family, friends and your animals 🌟🌟🌟

20/12/2024

Creepy Crawlies

We have recently been seeing a lot of calves riddled with the blood sucking lice Linognathus vituli.

This lice, while generally not considered a life threatening parasite, loves to take advantage of animals which are under the weather or are run down. It feeds on blood, so you can imagine when numbers explode they can consume a significant amount - not generally what a run down animal needs to deal with.

These lice are great camouflage artists. They usually look like a build up of dirt or flecks of mud around the thinner haired areas of the face such as the eyelids and around the muzzle. But what at first might look like dirt may actually be this lice, which is about as big as a flea.

It is much easier to spot lice on a white animal than on a dark animal. If you're worried that your youngstock have been run down and may be suffering from a heavu lice burden, a pour-on lice treatment is an easy way to treat them. And don't forget to address any underlying issues your stock may be dealing with as well!

19/12/2024

If you've ever wondered whether alpaca like to have fun, take a look at these 3 young cria tearing up the paddock with some zoomies. This is a nightly ritual for them just like most other young animals

08/11/2024

Drench Toxicity - Please Take Care

We recently received an urgent call from a client who had brought in their calves to recieve their first drench.

After the first few calves had been drenched, they noticed that the calves were acting strangely - breathing rapidly, swishing their tails, colicking, diarrhoea and agitated. This had quickly progressed to two calves being down and two more showing signs.

This rang immediate alarm bells for drench toxicity and we left to get to the farm as soon as possible.

By the time we arrived, the two recumbent calves had already died. The remaining two were twitchy, had diarrhoea, and were breathing rapidly.

We immediately administered a muscle relaxant and antiinflammtory into the vein, and gave them both 3L of cold electrolytes each.

Their temperature was dangerously high at above 41 degrees celsius, which was due to their excessive muscle activity from hyperventilating and twitching muscles, so they were cooled down by pouring buckets of cold water over them.

The signs the calves were showing were classic for Levamisole toxicity.

During the treatment process we ascertained a few problems with how drenching had done:

-The calves had been drenched for 120kg liveweight, which was substantially higher than what they actually were.
- The drench gun was not considered to be very accurate
- The drench used was a low-dose drench (1ml per 20kg) meaning every extra milliliter of drench give was much more potent that a 1ml per 10kg product

Levamisole is an incredibly powerful drench and many of you have been told to make sure it is included in your youngstock drenches. However, along with it being a powerful drench it also has a very low safety margin, which means that toxicity easily can occur when dosing is inaccurate. The safety margin is quoted at being 2 - 3 x the recommended dose rate.

Levamisole acts as a.stimulant. It kills worms by causing them to spasm so much that they become paralyzed, die and are expelled. The normal doses given to stock are enough to kill worms, but not enough to kill the animals drenched, however when the dose becomes too high, it has much the same stimulant effect on a calf or a sheep as it does on a worm.

Luckily for the two calves which survived until we got there, they recovered uneventful from their close call. Levamisole is an extremely short acting drench, with a half life of 16 hours, so once they are through the first few hours of toxicity signs they generally will recover fully.

The owners of these calves have kindly agreed for me to share this case with you, so that you can learn from their loss - please take care when drenching your stock!

Drenches are not innocuous for the animal being drenched, and toxicity is a risk if you are guesstimating liveweights. Make sure the drench gun you are using is dosing accurately, and double check the dose rate you remember is correct before you drench any stock. You might watch the videos and think that the signs aren't that bad but remember, there are two dead animals already in the foreground, and the video is taken immediately after the emergency treatment had been administered.

06/11/2024

We were recently contacted about a yearling dairy heifer who had been found with a very swollen elbow. The grazier was concerned she had dislocated her elbow and wanted an assessment of what was going on.

On examination, the heifer was moving quite well considering how large the swelling was. She could fully weight bear on the leg and was only slightly lame.

With the heifer restrained in the headbail, we could have a good feel of the leg. The swelling was mainly located on the inner side of the leg, between the leg and body. It was not painful or hot to touch, and the heifer had a normal temperature of 38.7 degrees celsius.

The most likely potential causes of the swelling were a hematoma or abscess. In order to differentiate between these two possibilities, the accessible part of the swelling was clipped and scrubbed, and a needle introduced - the hub of the needle filled up with pus! Abscess!

The heifer was lightly sedated and local anaesthetic was placed under the skin over the swelling. An incision was made to open and drain the abscess - and more than half a litre of pus was drained out.

The cavity was flushed and left to continue draining. The heifer recieved antiinflammatory for pain relief.

On the inside of the cavity, it felt as though she had torn a ligament on the inner side of her elbow. Whatever had caused this to happen had probably resulted in a large hematoma which subsequently abscesses.

This is another example of a large abscess in a really strange location - but we continue to be surprised most days with the problems animals present to us!

All the best to this heifer for a quick recovery during the breeding season 🌟🌟🌟