News & Advice

If your initial thought is, “I’ve never seen a tick on my farm; this article doesn’t apply to me,” please read on. This is a common misconception among farmers in Marlborough, even when faced with a very pale cow. Ticks are adept at sucking blood without being noticed. Unless you regularly inspect your livestock’s most […]

The International Dairy Federation (IDF) hosted the 2024 World Dairy Summit (WDS) in Paris from October 15–18, bringing together a diverse group of dairy farmers, rural professionals, industry leaders, and sustainability advocates. The International Dairy Federation (IDF) is a global non-profit organisation, founded in 1903, to represent the dairy sector. The IDF collaborates with governments, […]

Depending on where you are nuisance flies can be a real pain on farms over the summer and autumn months. The offending fly is Stomoxys calcitrans – also known as the stable fly. It is similar in appearance and size to the common house fly, but has mouthparts adapted to pierce through skin so it […]

There is nothing much more soul-wrenching than witnessing the rapid decline of a previously high-producing dairy cow, invariably in her prime, withering away to a skeleton fit only for the pet food truck. Johne’s disease is a scourge in the cattle industry worldwide and it is a major cause of wastage for our NZ dairy […]

Talking about reducing emissions and improving efficiency can be a delicate, if not an emotive, topic. Yet you should be congratulating yourself on just how far you have come. It was not too many years ago that mating lasted a consistent 16 weeks, with a large tranche of cows being induced to calve prematurely that […]

Reports of triple drench resistance are becoming far more commonplace in dairy heifers across NZ. To prevent this on our farms we need to be looking towards more sustainable use of drench going forward. A great starting point here is doing faecal egg count monitoring. Worm eggs in the faeces of cattle can give us […]

A lot is asked of calves after they are born and, in many ways, the odds are stacked against them. They are born without a functional immune system which still has four to six weeks to fully develop on them. Instead, they are reliant on the passive transfer of antibodies across their intestine from their […]

Vetlife production animal veterinarian Amy Avery has been practicing with Vetlife for over 13 years, the last eight of which have been at Vetlife Temuka. Amy has an active interest in calf rearing and herd health and is a keen proponent of our ‘Future Cow’ programme. Amy chose to specialise in farm animals after graduation […]

Calf scours in New Zealand is commonly caused by any of the following: rotavirus, cryptosporidium, E.coli, coronavirus, salmonella and coccidiosis. As well as infectious causes of scours (diarrhoea), nutritional scours (as a result of various stresses, milk type changes) can also be pretty severe. Regardless of the cause, it is the ensuing dehydration that results […]

Drying cows off is an opportunity to reduce herd mastitis which only happens once a year. Doing this job well can have great results. Mistakes and treatment failures are frustrating and costly. This means having a good plan and great records of what happened to which cows and when is becoming essential.   What’s the […]

This is a question I hear often… but not often enough! Why not often enough? Because occasionally I am called in after the fact, when the cows are way behind production targets or the breeding has been terrible, or both. In these cases, by the time I am called it is too late, the damage […]

The use of cow monitoring technology in heat detection and rumination changes, has become commonplace on many dairy farms around New Zealand, but how about its use for detecting mastitis and reducing the financial impact of one of the most prevalent health issues in the New Zealand dairy herd?  Detecting mastitis with cow monitoring devices […]