Our Service Package:

• MONITORING
• NUTRITION
• REPRODUCTIVE SERVICES
• DAIRY REPLACEMENT PROGRAM
• UDDER HEATH
• DISEASE TREATMENT & CONTROL
• ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
• PRODUCTION MEDICINE
• MANAGEMENT TEAMS
• ASSOCIATIONS
• RESOURCES
• CONTINUING EDUCATION
• MONITORING

We at ‘ TAVISTOCK VETERINARIANS' take an active roll in the overall health management of our dairy herds. Monitoring the productivity and health status of a dairy herd is essential.

On a dairy farm, there needs to be some mechanism whereby the dairy farmer and veterinarian can recognize when problems arise and changes need to be made. Without monitoring systems, such problems as elevated bulk tank somatic cell counts can grow to serious proportions before a remedy is implemented. Monitoring allows us to see trends that occur overtime. If these trends indicate disease, low production or other deviations from the accepted norm then our practice will, in consultation with you, the dairy farmer, implement an action plan.

Sources of data for herd health monitoring include:

• ODHIC records
• Dairy Comp 305 software
• Body condition scores
• Heifer growth charts
• Laboratory records
• Treatment records
• Dry matter intake
• Disease records
• Test results - Ketolak, NEFA’s, CMT, Rectal Temperature
• Nutrition - Return Over Feed - DMI

Evaluation of these monitoring systems will identify problems, assess trends, determine your efficiency and checks for response (favourable or unfavourable) to management changes or treatment that has been implemented.

The most important tool, the thing that makes a health management program work and be effective, is a record system.

Accurate and manageable recording systems have always played an integral role in a dairy herd health program. DAIRY COMP 305 is a very simple and effective record system for your farm. It allows simple collection of reproductive data, disease recording, production data. It can create action lists i.e. cows to be pregnancy checked cows to be vaccinated, cows to body condition scored. These management tools are offered as part of herd management program for our herds at no extra charge.

All our dairy clients are unique. We at ‘TAVISTOCK VETERINARIANS’ will develop a monitoring program that is tailored to your farm operation and with your ability to manage your farm.

NUTRITION

High-producing dairy cows have tremendous nutrient demands. These nutrient requirements must be supplied while satisfying the critical fibre requirements of the rumen. Nutrition must be delivered economically. Feed costs are approximately 40 to 60 % of the total cost of milk production. Nutritional advise can affect the herd profitability as well as the reproductive performance and the disease incidence on the farm.

Our practice utilizes the ‘Spartan’ Ration Balancer and Evalutator as well as the ‘CPM’ Ration Evaluator to ensure delivery of unbiased properly balance rations. Laptop computers are utilized on farm to balance rations and offer immediate modeling for ‘what if’ decision-making.

Ration balancing and consultation is provided for the young calf, the post-weaning heifer growing period, milk cows, far-off, close-up dry cows and early lactation. Emphasis is placed on rumen health thus reducing metabolic diseases.

Implementation of on-farm systems and strategies is critical to the success of our nutritional consultation. The lactating dairy cow should receive the same feed every day of her lactation. Inventory strategies and control, cropping selection and the proper selection and blending of feeds is a major emphasis of our practice.

Tools to deliver proper nutrition include:

• Coster moisture tester
• Penn State particle separator
• Dairy Comp 305

Frequent evaluation of ration imputs is important. All forage and commodity samples are analysed by Agri-Food Laboratories in Guelph. The latest technology is utilized to determine what each feed ingredient will deliver to the feeding program.

REPRODUCTIVE SERVICES

Infertility is widely recognized as an important cause of lowered productivity in dairy herds. Economic losses are primarily the result of increased breeding, drug and veterinary costs, decreased average daily milk production (resulting from extended lactational and non-lactational periods) and increased culling. Major causes of infertility are inefficient detection of estrus, low conception rates and abortions.

It is our goal at ‘Tavistock Veterinarians’ to minimize the economic losses in your dairy herd caused by poor reproductive performance. The following reproductive services are provided by our practice:

Routine Reproductive Herd Health Program

• Routine regularly scheduled visits to examine the reproductive tracts of the cow herd
• Diagnosis and early treatment of problems
• Heat predictions
• Early reliable pregnancy diagnosis.
• Computerized and manual reproductive record systems utilized
• Ultrasound examination utilized

The Problem Breeder

• Current hormone therapies utilized
• Caslicks surgery for vulval defects
• Beef embryo implantation

Controlled Breeding Program

• Reproduction examinations every two weeks where heats are controlled by prostaglandin therapy every two weeks
• Target, Ovsynch. Presynch programs utilized
• Pregnancy exams performed prior to 42 days post-breeding

Vaccination Programs

• Individually tailored vaccination programs to immunize your herd against diseases that cause abortions and early embryonic death.
• Emphasis on protecting the fetus with the use of vaccines.

Teaser Heifers

• Hormonally controlled heifers can be programmed to aid in heat detection

Embryo Transfer Services

• Up-to-date hormone induction of the donor cow and estrus synchronization of recipient heifers.
• We have cultivated a very good working arrangement with local embryo transfer services to harvest the recovered ova.
Implantation of frozen embryos is a valuable service we offer

Nutritional Consulting Services

• We offer a complete knowledge of the inter-relationship between nutrition, reproduction and production
• Rations are evaluated and balanced with our ‘Spartan’ Ration Balancing program and ‘CPM’ Ration Evaluator.

Economic Assessment

• Monitoring reproductive performance allows us to evaluate the economic impact of reproduction on the herd

DAIRY REPLACEMENT PROGRAM

The dairy replacement enterprise is of major economic importance to all dairy producers. The purpose of the heifer enterprise is to raise economical replacements for cows culled from the milking herd, increasing the herd size or both. Raising dairy replacements represents the second highest cost on a farm, after raising crops. The economic importance is under-estimated because most producers do not document the costs. For this reason, the heifer unit is often the most poorly managed enterprise on the farm.

‘Tavistock Veterinarians’ can play an integral part in your heifer-rearing program. To be profitable the following objectives are critical for a successful heifer-raising program:

• Calving at 24 months of age
• Raising heifers that are of sufficient size to minimize calving problems and maximize production performance
• Producing animals that are genetically superior to the existing herd
• Raising healthy herd replacements
• Producing an adequate number of heifers to maintain herd size

Size and Age of Calving

First lactation production and lifetime are both influenced by size and age at first calving. "Tavistock Veterinarians" can help in management decisions that have a major influence on both of these items. Well kept, current records that can be produced by Dairy Comp 305 or other hand-written records are essential. We offer ear tags for visible identification. This information is recorded to monitor age.

Height and weight or body score measurements can be routinely performed and recorded by our practice. Plotting of height and weight can help us to pinpoint problems in feeding and management. These steps will allow us to keep your heifer-rearing program on track so that your heifers will be properly grown to calve at 24 months of age.

Breeding action or remainder sheets generated by Dairy Comp 305 enhance reproductive management.

Nutrition

Routine ration balancing and regular forage analysis ensures that heifers are provided with the nutrients needed for optimal growth. Our ‘Spartan’ Ration Balancing Program and the ‘CPM’ Ration Evaluator is used to provide adequate heifer nutrition. The success of the nutrition program should be monitored with height and weight measurements.

Technical Support

Our practice has trained technicians to provide expert economical, on farm support for heifer height and weight data collection.

Heifer Health

‘Tavistock Veterinarians’ establish programs for producing healthy, well-grown replacements. We have considerable knowledge in the following critical areas of heifer health management:

• Colostrum management
• Vaccination programs
• Environmental assessment and management – air quality and air flow (draft) evaluation
• Housing design
• Proper animal husbandry – grouping to age and size, proper stalking density, clipping of calves
• Recording systems to track disease incidence and mortality
• Proper knowledge of current treatment regimes for disease
• Dehorning and extra teat removal at proper age
• All deaths should be post-mortemed to determine the exact cause of death

Genetic Progress

Our reproductive program encourages the use of A.l. sires vs a breeding bull. This maximizes the genetic progress in a herd. Fist-calf heifers normally make up 30 to 35 % if the milking herd. This means that these heifers will or should produce a significant portion of genetically superior calves in the replacement herd.

UDDER HEALTH

Losses due to mastitis can have a tremendous impact on your financial success. Mastitis is generally considered the most costly disease of dairy cattle. The disease, mastitis, is a complex disease in which the interaction between the cow, the environment and the mastitis pathogen are greatly affected by management.

Our mastitis control program addresses this triangle of environment, the cow, the pathogen and the dairy producer. Consideration of the following is critical.

• Economic losses incurred by the herd
• Bulk tank somatic cell count
• Individual cow somatic cell count and linear scores
• Bulk tank culturing of bacteria
• Individual cow culturing
• Records of clinical cases
• Classification of the pathogens - environmental  - contagious

Services available

• in-clinic culturing system for individual cows
• Close liaison with Veterinary Laboratory Services for herd culturing
• Dairy Comp 305 - continuing monitoring is critical to the success of our udder health program
• Technicians trained to collect milk samples on farm
• Proper antibiotic selection for milking and cows at dry off
• Vaccination programs for mastitis control

DISEASE TREATMENT AND CONTROL

"Tavistock Veterinarians" offer extensive programs tailored to each individual farm. All programs are based on the close association of disease, environment, management and nutrition. These programs are developed and implemented with economic consideration of the dairy farm.

Herd disease treatment and control programs involve the following principles:

• Elimination of disease by treatment with up-to-date medication
• Strict adherence and proper instruction on meat and milk withhold times to avoid inhibitor penalty violations
• Prediction disease and implementing vaccination programs for such diseases as BVD, IBR, Leptospirosis, other respiratory diseases, E.Coli Scours, Acute Coliform Mastits
• Vaccination selection wrt cost, efficiency and safety
• Recommending culling when applicable
• Surveillance of disease via Dairy Comp 305
• Input into genetic selection to increase resistance to disease, ie. Proper udder confirmation and the relationship of susceptibility to mastitis

We at "Tavistock Veterinarians" offer current treatment protocols and surgical techniques for all types of infectious and metabolic diseases. A through knowledge of the inter-relationship between production and disease is essential to handle the metabolic diseases that affect the modern dairy cow.

All clinic veterinarians are adept at handling the large obstetrical caseload that is associated with a dairy practice.

Our staff is well trained to receive your incoming phone requests for service. Our 8 mobiles are radio equipped to give prompt, efficient service. The clinic phone is answered on a 24-hour basis to provide prompt emergency service. Voice recorded answering machines are not used by our practice.

Laboratory services are utilized to enhance our diagnostic capabilities. In clinic serum tests for calcium phosphorous, magnesium and various liver function tests allow us to make immediate diagnosis and treatment plans.

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Recognition of the importance of environmental management in the maintenance of health and productivity is a relatively recent development. An optional state of health and performance can be maintained by fine-tuning the delicate balance in the agent-host-environment relationship. Our practice would like to highlight three predominate principles of environmental management in dairy herds.

These are:

• Reduce the number of pathogens in the environment
• Reduce the potential for contact between the pathogens and the cows or heifers
• Minimize the detrimental effects for the environment on the animals, which may alter animal defense mechanisms

We as practitioners have the distinct advantage of working in all types of barn designs, housing types, milking systems and ventilation systems. We are able to see the diseases that can be attributed to each type of environmental design. All housing systems impose some degree of restriction on the animals. In conjunction with O.M.A.F.R.A. engineers we are able to offer you input into the 'cow comfort' of your facilities. Stall characteristics, ventilation design, location of water, water pressure, bedding or lack of can all impact greatly on your herd production and profitability.

When we offer a comprehensive dairy health management program, environmental considerations are an integral component. Monitoring environmental influence is essential to address progress or lack of performance.

The environment of the dairy cow has a dramatic impact on the profitability of you farm.

PRODUCTION MEDICINE

The veterinary profession is undergoing change, as is the dairy industry. There are fewer farms. Farms are bigger with very competent people capable of carrying out routine tasks once thought to be veterinary-only procedures. Traditional medicine and surgery is still an important service we offer. Fertility service has been the backbone of most herd health programs. As dairy farms get larger there is the evolution of a different type of veterinary service referred to as "production medicine".

The ability to identify production inefficiencies and implement corrective measures is essential for economic success of the diary enterprise. Instead of utilizing temperature, heart rate etc. the veterinarian uses lactation curves, peak milk, test day milk production, management milk, body condition scores, dry matter intake and herd somatic cell counts as the diagnostic tools.

A production medicine program is a continual search to identity the current limitations of herd production and to develop solutions to those problems. The conceptual basis of a production medicine program is dynamic (always changing).

If you feel that "Production Medicine" has a place in your enterprise then the question may arise. "How do I implement this on my farm?" Many of you are involved in production medicine programs, although not as specifically structured as a text book design would indicate. Others who feel they are not receiving this type of veterinary medicine may have all the monitoring tools in place but never share the information with their veterinarian (Do you routinely have available you ODHI binder for your veterinarian to look at?).

A successful management relationship between a producer and the veterinarian hinges on trust, co-operation, respect and communication. Encourage your veterinarian to enter into a relationship with you if you feel comfortable with that individual. Both parties should challenge each other. It is easy to be complacent and allow the "status quo" to prevail.

Goals:

It is important to communicate your goals with your veterinarian. It is counter productive for a veterinarian to establish an elaborate feeding schedule for delivering topdress for a component fed herd when it is the goal of the dairy producer to spend as little time in the barn as possible. If the veterinarian was aware of the owner's goal, a more efficient, less time consuming system could be implemented.

The goal setting process should include goals of the dairy enterprise and of the family. The goals of each must compliment each other. If your goal is to continue dairy farming for 5 years until your last child is through university, then a goal to milk in a new parlour may not be a goal that matches your wishes for your family. However, if your goal is to be involved in the dairy industry for 15 years, then the goal to have a new parlour is more realistic.

Summary:

The management processes which a dairy owner should utilize to create a successful relationship with a veterinarian involve the implementation of production medicine. This blueprint for success includes the setting of goals, both herd and family.

Monitoring systems such as Dairy Comp 305. Action plans and record systems are essential components of a successful diary enterprise.

MANAGEMENT TEAMS

The Team Approach is an ideal method of ensuring management advise to the dairy enterprise. Most dairy farms have a list of advisers that impact on the herd's profitability. This team can include a veterinarian, nutritionist, crop specialist, accountant and banker.

This group can be a powerful force to assist farm families in achieving their goals. The value of the team is greater than the sum of its parts. These teams learn from each other, At present, this team does not often work in proper unison. There can be a complete lack of continuity of opinion and there is often an attempt to achieve only those goals directly pertaining to one member of the team. An example could be the crop consultant who has advised that the haylage be harvested at a relative feed value of 180. The fresh cows are experiencing problems with butterfat depression and a high incidence of twisted stomachs. In this situation the goal of a relative feed value of 180 may not be what the veterinarian is advising. This situation is counter productive to the profitability of the enterprise.

A short list of ground rules for a management team should include:

1. THE PRODUCER HAS THE FINAL SAY - IT IS HIS/HER FARM!

• All ideas need to be discussed freely and openly.
• Everyone needs to respect the ideas of the other members of the team and those of the farm family for the betterment of the whole farm.
• The farm family takes ownership of the final priorities and goals agreed upon.
• The management team members need to put the dairy farm family's interests above self-interests!

These management teams have been put in place in Minnesota and Pennsylvania. I personally feel this concept has a great potential for our dairy industry. The professionals are already in place. It is a win/win situation for all parties involved.

The members of the team need to be identified by you the owner. Who do you presently rely on for advice? Choose the people you are comfortable with. Then I suggest a meeting be coordinated to get the group together. If confidentiality of your enterprise is a concern, have all members sign a "confidentiality agreement" stating that the farm information will only be discussed with this group.

Members of this group can be added as needed. A construction professional may be added if expansion is part of the farm's plan.

ASSOCIATIONS

• Canadian Veterinary Medical Association
• Ontario Veterinary Medical Association
• College of Veterinarians of Ontario
• Ontario Association of Bovine Practitioners
• American Association of Bovine Practitioners

RESOURCES

• OMAFRA
• AI Industry
• Feed Industry
• ODHI
• OVC
• Agri-Food Laboratories
• Animal Health Laboratory Services
• Pharmaceutical Industry
• Dr John Fetrow
• Dr Dave Kelton
• Dr Kerry Lissemore
• Dr Ewen Ferguson
• Dr. Randy Graham
• Dr. Rob Tremblay

REGULAR ATTENDANCE - CONTINUING EDUCATION

• American Association of Bovine Practitioners
• North East Dairy Production Medicine Symposium
• Dairy Health Management Modules
• Canadian Veterinary Medical Convention
• Ontario Association of Bovine Practitioners
• Ontario Veterinary Medical Association