Routine Farm Animal Services
As a production animal vet service, our staff are all qualified to help you maintain and improve your farming systems from dairy to deer and everything in-between. All of our staff are experienced dairy cow vets. Below are some of the services we offer all year round.
Ultrasound Scanning for Pregnancy
Each GVS team member has been trained by principle vet, Andrew Gore, in pregnancy scanning. We have an excellent degree of precision and can provide accurate, dated results in a timely manner.
Acquiring accurate pregnancy data is an integral part of identifying areas for improvement in your herd reproductive program.
Vaccinations
Keeping all classes of stock vaccinated is an important step in ensuring your preventative health program remains up to date. Our team can help you by carrying out this task to the highest standard.
We can also give advice on which vaccinations and injectable supplements should be added to your annual program to keep your overall production at its highest.
Dry cow therapy
Perfecting your drying off protocol is an essential step to ensure that mastitis is minimized come to Spring. Booking our dry cow/teat seal team is a great way to take the guesswork out of this process. All of our dairy cow vet team members receive annual training by a technical vet to keep their skills and knowledge current. If you are keen to treat cows yourself, however, we can provide on-farm training, giving you the confidence and knowledge to perform the job to a high standard.
Non-cycling Cow and Synchrony Programs
We know mating can be a stressful time for farmers and we are here to help. The targeted use of hormonal devices and injections (e.g. CIDR programs) can help to get cows in calf quicker, shortening the calving interval. We recommend implementing both a non-cycling cow program and a synchrony program, to increase the number of days in milk, and ultimately, money in your pocket.
All staff, including receptionists, are up to date with recent changes in the above programs and are able to inform on new research. Please call us to discuss a tailor made reproductive program today.
Heifer teat sealing
There are many benefits in teat sealing heifers. This is shown by the increasing number of clients that opt for this service annually. Farmers report far fewer cases of mastitis over the dry period as well as post calving. A huge part of our teat seal team’s success is attributed to sedating heifers prior to sealant insertion.
We find heifers are more relaxed, improving safety, which allows our team to perform a thorough job. As an added bonus, the heifers’ shed experience remains a positive one so there is less anxiety associated with the shed post calving.
Disbudding
As of October 2019, updated animal welfare regulations now prevent untrained persons from performing calf disbudding. GVSdairy cow vet clinics, sedate all calves for disbudding, whilst providing concurrent local anaesthesia. Studies have shown that calf recovery post disbudding is greatly improved when coupled with sedation; calf stress is limited and calves actually have improved growth rates! Calves generally feel the effects of sedation for 1-2 hours, so clients often take the opportunity to ear tag, DNA test, vaccinate and have accessory teats removed during this time. We offer ‘Gold’ and ‘Silver’ standards of disbudding - call us to find out which one works best for you!
If you wish to continue disbudding your own calves, our vets can provide on-farm training annually to allow you to do this. Call us for more information or to book an appointment before the disbudding season.
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