Restricted Veterinary Medicine Authorisations

Many sheep, beef and deer farmers will be reviewing their annual scripts at this time of year, so why not use this process to your advantage rather than treating it as a pain in the proverbial? Often this is your one chance to sit down with your Vetlife vet and revise your animal health plan or, in many cases, actually make one!!! Plans can range from simple printouts, which may be placed on the toilet wall if that is where your serious thinking is done, to more complicated laminated versions in your office which can send email or text reminders of jobs for you to do.

While formalising your plan, all aspects of animal health and new research can be discussed, such as:

• Vaccination protocols. Do I use clostridial 5-in-1, 6-in-1 or Covexin®10, and when should I sensitise and boost? When do I order Toxovax so it is administered at the correct time and timing for other vaccines such as Campyvax4®, Salvexin+B and Yersiniavax® to get maximum benefit?
• Ram health checks, including palpation and the merits of “teasers” and when these vasectomies should be carried out
• Fly control and lice treatments
• Trace element monitoring and advice
• Parasite management plan including:
  – genetics
  – stock feeding and condition scoring
  – integration of stock classes and species
  – monitoring via drench checks, FEC reduction tests and weight gains
  – programmes involving what drench how often, route of administration, which animals to treat, and how to slow drench resistance by strategic drenching
  – analysis of the past year`s results (such as scanning vs tailing figures) to identify areas of concern in ewe/ lamb mortality or general under performance

Most of the above parameters are just as applicable to the beef and deer sectors and can be incorporated into the same plan. The economic pressure remains on all farm classes, and systems often need tweaking to maximise production efficiency – this may be by actually reducing animal health costs through impartial scientific advice. This is particularly pertinent for those of you in drought-recovery mode, ie farmers operating in a large number of our practice clinic areas.

All Vetlife clinics have an experienced sheep, beef and deer veterinarian, or access to one, to give you this advice, so why not utilise this knowledge while fulfilling your legal requirements? Many of you have already been audited by MPI and meat companies, so why not make the most of this available resource?.

Chris McFarlane
Vetlife Dunsandel