South West Region Health Improvements

South West Region Health Improvements

Sunday, 06 February 2011 00:00

Over 2000 dairy and beef farmers have now engaged with the BVD and Johne's Healthy Livestock programmes in the South West. The Johnes initiative is becoming the most successful voluntary health programme for cattle ever run, with collaborations between farmers, vets, processors and administrators making it work for over 1000 dairy farms (about one third of all the dairy farms in the region). Myhealthyherd is proud to be the tool used to manage these challenging diseases, and the newly launched Bovine Respiratory Disease programme for beef herds is being supported by the respiratory disease section of myhealthyherd.com.

Check out the Healthy Livestock website at www.healthylivestock.org.uk to get involved.

The Johne's Action Group(JAG) has helped provide a tool kit which farming groups can use to aid farmers in the control of Johne's Disease.

The JAG group has members from veterinary organisations (British Cattle Veterinary Association), laboratories ( VLA, NMR) and wide range of organisations from within the dairy industry.

The principles of control are based on risk assessment, establishing disease status and farmer and veterinary education to ensure the most appropriate control mechanisms are adopted.

For more information visit the Dairy UK website