Farming Monthly National November 2017 | Page 29

| Livestock

Moocall calving sensor or calving cameras?

During calving season, it’ s important to monitor your animals to ensure that the calving proceeds according to plan and that nothing happens to endanger the lives of cow or calf.

I t’ s only in the last few years where checking on your herd didn’ t have to mean a potentially long walk into the calving pens in all kinds of weather to observe the animals in person. Calving cameras became affordable and accessible, letting the farmer check on his herd from the comfort of his own home. However, this still meant needing to get up during the night to check the cameras and about a third of the time still needing to walk to the calving pens to check on the animals that weren’ t on camera, that were facing the wrong way or that were acting abnormally.

Cameras installed or not, the Moocall calving sensor will let you sleep more, make you more productive during the day, and ultimately save you calves, money and time
The Moocall calving sensor completely changes this for you.
Now you can wait to check the cameras until you get a notification that calving is underway. The big difference of a Moocall calving sensor vs a calving camera is that the calving sensor measures contractions, so in the case of a difficult calving, the sensor will trigger an alert, even though visually, the animal will look like nothing is happening. Often when there is a hoof caught, or a twisted uterus, labour will not be able to progress and looking at the cow, either through a camera or in person, would not reveal any issues. The calving sensor really shines in these situations, because you always know how long labour has been progressing for. So if your sensor triggers an alert, but within a couple of hours nothing is happening, then that’ s the time to handle the animal and investigate further.
If you already have a camera system installed in your calving pens, the Moocall calving sensor is an ideal companion. You will spend less time checking on cows and more time in other areas of the farm that could also do with your time and attention.
Cameras installed or not, the Moocall calving sensor will let you sleep more, make you more productive during the day, and ultimately save you calves, money and time.
With the newly launched red attachment, which makes the Moocall calving sensor even easier to attach and is designed not to slip down the tail so it can be worn more comfortably and less tight on the tail, this season is the time to invest in a sensor and start breeding like it’ s 2020!

New test will improve liver fluke control in cattle

A new test to screen herds for liver fluke has been developed, which could help to reduce the risk of cattle developing immunity to existing deworming treatments.

C attle become infected with liver fluke by eating grass contaminated with cysts containing fluke eggs, shed from mud snails found in damp, marshy areas of pasture. Infection is very common and even low levels can lead to serious losses in production. It can extend time to slaughter and reduce milk yield by up to 15 per cent. The wet weather during late summer is likely to increase the risk of liver fluke infection for cattle on many farms this year.

The test involves the collection of faecal samples from a number of cattle in the herd which is then analysed by a lab and a single count reported. The new method was created as part of a joint project involving AHDB and led by the University of Liverpool with the Moredun Research Institute.
Mary Vickers, AHDB Beef & Lamb Senior Scientist, said:“ Controlling liver fluke is a difficult task, particularly because of emerging resistance to some of
the flukicidal products used to treat cattle and sheep. Looking to the future, reliance on deworming treatments alone is likely to be unsustainable so treatment informed by diagnosis is crucial for disease control.”
The new testing method known as‘ composite faecal egg counting’ is suitable for both dairy and beef cattle and allows herds to be screened for infection, with targeted treatment administered as required.
This composite test was found to be at least as good as other diagnostic methods, such as the copro-antigen ELISA, for identifying infected herds. To save time testing in labs in the future, the project team is working to develop pen-side tests, which farmers and vets can use to give diagnostic results straight away, allowing immediate, targeted treatments.
The project was funded by a large multi-centre grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council in partnership with AHDB, Hybu Cyg
Cymru( HCC), Quality Meat Scotland( QMS) and Agrisearch Northern Ireland to improve the control of liver fluke infection in beef and dairy cattle.
For AHDB, improving animal health and welfare while reducing costs and driving uptake of best practice of on-farm medicine use
is a key area of activity in AHDB Beef & Lamb’ s 2017-2020‘ Inspiring success’ strategy.’
More information can be found in the BRP manual Controlling Worms and Liver Fluke for Better Returns
www. farmingmonthly. co. uk November 2017 | Farming Monthly | 29