Vets and TB testing

[dairyrow]

Sadly we had a reactor 2 3 months ago. That when killed tested negative. We have just started our second test today. The vet come by themselves and have yet again slowed the parlour down to a snail pace. Have just gone in for dinner and i don't think we'll be finished before milking if they carry on at this pace. Surely it's there responsibility to bring with them a asistant to book the numbers down or is it the farmers responsibility? Once a year i can just about cope with it. If this becomes a regular thing surely it's upto them to get upto speed. My parlour throughput is just abit over 100 cows an hour. I don't think it's big throuhput by modern standards.

 

[Timbo]

Local vet or ministry vet ??

 

[Cows 'n grass]

What time did you start? We always do the numbers ourselves.

 

[traineefarmer]

It's the farmers responsibility to provide as much help and assistance as necessary.

 

[Werzle]

Sadly we had a reactor 2 3 months ago. That when killed tested negative. We have just started our second test today. The vet come by themselves and have yet again slowed the parlour down to a snail pace. Have just gone in for dinner and i don't think we'll be finished before milking if they carry on at this pace. Surely it's there responsibility to bring with them a asistant to book the numbers down or is it the farmers responsibility? Once a year i can just about cope with it. If this becomes a regular thing surely it's upto them to get upto speed. My parlour throughput is just abit over 100 cows an hour. I don't think it's big throuhput by modern standards.

Most farmers get help in so the test runs smoothly, heard of a few farmers who try to make the test as awkward as possible for vets but the test has to be done regardless so vets will plod on and play them at there own game. Everything goes better if people work together, the vet isnt the enemy.

 

[Beef farmer]

Change vets.
Ours arrive with computer strapped to their arm, and can test cows as quick as we can milk within reason. Takes about 20/25 seconds per animal.
We have a good setup as we do it every 60 days, and the vet never waits for cows

 

[dairyrow]

Local vet. We started at 6:30 this morning. Found it alot easier to run them through after they've been milked. Usually have 2 in the parlour and one doing the crush and some one pushing them in. I don't think we can be any more helpful. Different vet today and they are sort of insisting writing down the numbers.

 

[Bramble]

Takes us about 40 man hours to do a test, including the read, for 400 animals. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depends on time of year, how many groups of cattle there are, grazing or housed. More reactors slow things down.

Years and years ago it was very simple, before we had a breakdown, very little measuring etc. Now every single animal is measured and recorded.

Pain in backside when you have to do it every 60 days

 

[pappuller]

Local vet. We started at 6:30 this morning. Found it alot easier to run them through after they've been milked. Usually have 2 in the parlour and one doing the crush and some one pushing them in. I don't think we can be any more helpful. Different vet today and they are sort of insisting writing down the numbers.

Your doing them 1 at a time in a crush ?
How many animals?
We can do 200 adult animals in approx 2 hrs, 20 at a time herringbone race

 

[BELOWAVERAGE]

We print a list off of every animal on the farm, they are then ticked off as they go through the crush and get jabbed or read, ordinary crush, we'd average just shy of 100 an hour, vet normally brings an assistant for paper work other wise one of us does it.

 

[vantage]

Our vet always has an assistant to do the numbers, actually all Adrian does is TB testing , it’s his full time job, thanks NAW.
Just been reading some of the posts, I’m amazed anybody’s vet can clip , measure and inject at the rates claimed here. Our vets keep up with our parlour, 20/40 , but on rotaries need two crushes to keep up.

 

[Cowabunga]

We find it much easier to run the cows through a race and crush after milking. Sart at 10a.m and we will have done around 220 animals by 2pm including moving the crush seven miles on a trailer and setting up there to do about 50 animals and having 45 minutes for lunch. Four of us will be at it. I'll be on the crush and shouting numbers to the vet who does the trimming, two jabs and recording while the other two keep the cows flowing from the cubicles, through the parlour left side and back through the race and into the crush. I get one of two female vets to do it and they are very very good at it.
I tend to vaccinate against lepto and BVD when we read, which slows us down to about the same throughput as the first time. I do the subcutaneous while someone else does the intramuscular the other side. I've had one of the female vets do subcutaneous one-handed, amazingly quickly, which I could never do. Much safer one-handed.

 

[davidroberts30]

My gosh it would be nice to bill the ministry for the extra labour involved

 

[Farmer Fin]

Our vet always has an assistant to do the numbers, actually all Adrian does is TB testing , it’s his full time job, thanks NAW.
Just been reading some of the posts, I’m amazed anybody’s vet can clip , measure and inject at the rates claimed here. Our vets keep up with our parlour, 20/40 , but on rotaries need two crushes to keep up.

Same. The days of vast numbers per hour are gone really. Some farmers first blame if they get a reactor is the vet didn’t do the test correctly.
Letter of the law says ear tagged checked, both sites felt for lumps, both sites clipped, both sites Injected and then both sites felt for blebs. It takes time I’m afraid.
Some farms have fantastic set-ups and help which means the vet is the limiting factor, more often than not it’s actually shifting groups of cattle around which loses the time and slows the job down.
At the end of the day farmers and vets hate TB testing in equal measures and both just want it down as quickly and as properly as possible.

 

[Sid]

Testing today.
Started 9 am finished injecting at 12.45 including 6 mile drive other farm.

Wouldn't do it while milking.

 

[Spudley]

We never test at milking time, we get the vet to come about 8 am by which time the cows are running out of the shed and up the race. Our race takes 12 cows and 10 years of q 60 day testing has given us lots of practice. We have a double yoke at the front, we close the back yoke on their neck and push them back with the front yoke so they don't move around too much. If that makes sense. It usually takes an hour and a half to do 150 cows and about the same again for the youngstock. Our vets all have the handhelds (which farmers don't get to touch lol) and I usually shout out the numbers as they come up the race or my husband reads them in the yoke.

 

[dairyrow]

Well we started at 6:30 am finished at 4 pm. With an hour for breakfast and dinner. Maybe 550 to 600 animals went through yesterday. They developed a bad back at 3 and gave the recording of the calves for Ellie to do. I think we should get a level of service and it rather worries me that they might pocket the cash and put ever increasing costs and time on us. Theres plenty of people who'd write the stuff down. My foot trimmer doesn't charge me any extra for bringing his asistant to help him and why should the vet? Nearly 2 and half hours to do the high group of 130 cows is just stupid on many levels. Have to ask my friend who's married to a ministry vet. What should be provided by the vet and what is actually expected of me as livestock keeper.

 

[Princess Pooper]

Local vet. We started at 6:30 this morning. Found it alot easier to run them through after they've been milked. Usually have 2 in the parlour and one doing the crush and some one pushing them in. I don't think we can be any more helpful. Different vet today and they are sort of insisting writing down the numbers.

Do they not come with a pre-printed list? Our vets are always OK to do their own writing, we give them a 45 gallon drum as a table to put their clipboard on and as we are a closed herd the numbers are really easy to find, we shout the number out as she goes in the crush (from her freezebrand as it is the same as her tag). Of course they have to write the skin measurements down for every cow on the first day. But we are only testing 140 head in total, including youngstock. For the number you have I would say you need to supply more staff - it is your responsibility. I push them into the race and my husband operates the crush, We don't do any during milking.

 

[Beef farmer]

Why have your vets not all got computers

 

[Cowabunga]

Why have your vets not all got computers

Easier and faster to do it on paper. Especially in closed herds where all the numbers are in order. All my freezbrands correspond to the official tags as well, which makes it much easier if the tags are hidden in hair or covered in shït as they occasionally are.