WHY IMPROVE YOUR HERD HEALTH STATUS ?

Many herds have a good standard of health, having worked with their vets over a number of years to control mastitis, lameness, fertility and production diseases.

Further improvments are happening with the introduction of Herd Health Plans to meet the requirements of Farm Assurance Schemes. Beef and dairy herds have already achieved freedom from many of the diseases subject to state control, such as Brucellosis and EBL.

Strict controls to keep out highly infectious diseases, like Foot and Mouth, are now widely understood and practiced; but many herds still do not know their own particular health status for BVD, IBR, Lepto and Johne's.

Many European countries have either eradicated, or have embarked upon national control and eradication programmes for BVD, IBR, Lepto and Johne's disease.

If we do not keep pace with these improvements we will find ourselves, as individual herd owners, unable to compete with the rest of Europe.

Herd health will increasingly become a conumer-led issue, which could prevent milk or beef being sold from non-compliant farms.