Animal health Students scoop Farm Health Management Award


Catriona Marshall:


winning essay


Harper Adams student was among three students to beat off a bumper number of entries and win this year’s Royal Associa- tion of British Dairy Farmers Farm Health Management Award. Sponsored by Volac, the awards aim to demonstrate and test the students’ knowl- edge on the importance of proactive farm health management. Each candidate had to submit a 1,500-word essay with the win- ners taking home a £500 cash prize. Second-year student Catriona Marshall from Harper Adams University, scooped the trophy in the agricultural university cate- gory. She is studying Agriculture with An- imal Science and hails from a dairy farm. Ms Marshall currently milks cows on a local dairy farm. She hopes building her knowledge on farm health management will help with her future farm work and studies.


Dairy pregnancy test helps optimise milk margins


ter switching to a new pregnancy test to optimise margins. John Holdcroft runs a 200-cow ped- igree Holstein herd in a family part- nership near Burton on Trent. “We’ve adopted a relatively high input, high output strategy in order to fulfil our objective – to maximise its perfor- mance and in turn, achieve profit,” he explains.


A Maintaining herd fertility is im-


portant, explains Mr Holdcroft, who switched to the new pregnancy test after too many cows were returning to service. “We’re aware that every open day costs money, however hav- ing said that we don’t like to push our cows too hard.”


Milk recording Mr Holdcroft says he used to present about 25 cows to the vet each month – many of which were bit suspicious about not being in calf. But he was al- ready milk recording – so three years ago he started to use the Pregnancy- Associated Glycoproteins milk preg- nancy test. “We use the milk test over the entire herd at 40 days after service or at the


30 MIDLAND FARMER • FEBRUARY 2021 Cost-effective


The vet investigates if there is an is- sue. If there is, the Holdcrofts are able to treat accordingly and then quick- ly rebreed. “Since then we’ve found it is proving to be over 95% accurate,” says Mr Holdcroft. “We rate it to be cost effective.” The PAG test complements the


unit’s heat detection system. Pedom- eters are checked twice a day. If they pick up any animal not showing by 100 days post calving, then she is present- ed to the vet at the next visit too. Apart from helping to increase per- formance efficiency, Mr Holdcroft says the milk test is improving herd welfare and saving time and labour – particu- larly when there is less available help


The pregnancy- associated glycoproteins milk pregnancy test has


improved herd performance, says John Holdcroft


on the farm.


Mr Holdcroft says: “Fertility will remain a challenge in a high input high output herd, however I’m rela- tively relaxed towards tightening up the calving index which stands at 410 days. I’d be satisfied if PAG continues to help the trend and reduce to a tar- geted 400 days.”


year-round calving dairy herd in Staffordshire is averaging 11,500 litres per lactation af-


nearest milk recording. It’s straightfor- ward and non-invasive. Around three days later, we receive a text message from NMR when the results are ready for log in.”


Results are returned as positive, negative or recheck. “Those results help us to identify cows that would have escaped our attention. Nowa- days we are presenting to the vet each month just 10 to 12 animals, those that have PAG tested either negative or re- check.”


Other winners were Emily Eaton of Liver- pool Vet School’s and Martha Richards of Duchy College. The essays were judged by a panel fea- turing RABDF council member and Gelli Aur College farm manager John Owen; vet- erinary surgeon Dan Griffiths; and dairy consultant and awards chairman Sumner.


John


The quality of entries this year was some of the best ever, said Mr Sumner, who has judged the competition since it began in 2007. “In all three categories, the winners and runners up were very hard to separate, almost interchangeable,” he added. “Catriona wrote a well analysed and very relevant essay; Emily’s essay took a practical approach with innovative ideas and Martha introduced SMART objectives, which went beyond the farm gate.”


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40