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Continuing Veterinary Record9s series of articles discussing the state of different sectors of the veterinary profession, Fiona Lovatt reviews the role of vets in sheep farming in the UK, arguing that they need to deliver high-quality, cost-effective advice to secure their position in the industry.

With the advent of the 2018 lambing season, we would like to remind all vets who have sheep farmer clients that, in any flock, it is not appropriate for all neonatal lambs to be treated with an antibiotic from the start of the new lambing season. In individual flocks and with close veterinary supervision, it may be appropriate to use targeted control measures …

DESPITE growing media, political and public attention on antimicrobial resistance, vets should not lose focus on tackling anthelmintic resistance too. It is clear when antimicrobial resistance guidelines, such as the BVA's eight-point plan (BVA 2009), are compared to anthelmintic use guidelines, like those available from the Sustainable Control Of Parasites in Sheep initiative (SCOPS 2014), that the challenges and principles of tackling both are often directly comparable. It is well known that livestock performance and productivity is detrimentally affected by worms and resistance is a widespread problem. Information collected from 62 sheep farms in south-west England suggests that between 38 per cent and 47 per cent of farms show evidence of resistance to all …

LAST summer, the Sheep Veterinary Society (SVS) updated its guidelines on the examination of rams for breeding, and produced data collection forms and a certificate suitable for use by veterinary …

WITHIN Europe, Britain has by far the largest national flock of sheep, producing a third of the European total ([Eurostat 2010][1]). In fact, although the value of our sheep industry is only a fifth of that of our combined beef and dairy industries, there are 15 million breeding ewes in the UK

IN response to the increasing challenges associated with the control of liver fluke in sheep and cattle, a series of regional CPD meetings have been organised for veterinary practitioners from the end of November 2013. Veterinary surgeons and researchers have worked together …

Orf, a viral disease which causes proliferative skin lesions around the mouths of lambs and on the teats of ewes, has long been assumed to have production-limiting consequences. This case-control study involved the collection of data from naturally occurring outbreaks of orf in young lambs on eight commercial farms in north-east England. Measurements of weight were taken and orf lesions were scored on a numerical scale for 44 orf-affected lambs, matched to unaffected controls within the same group. Data from corresponding ewes were available from five farms. Paired t tests showed that affected lambs weighed approximately 10 per cent less than their unaffected controls for a period of at least five weeks following the start of the outbreak. The effects were highly significant whether the orf lesions affected the mouth or were found elsewhere on the body. If a lamb had orf, then there was a 82 per cent chance that its mother also had orf on its udder or teats. The financial consequences of orf in young lambs were estimated using average UK figures and conservative assumptions based on the results of this study.