Last chance to claim for the Animal Health & Welfare Pathway

The funding for the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway comes to an end in June 2027, but there is still time to claim for a Health Plan AND follow-up testing!

For beef cattle this means:

• £647 for health plan + BVD check test
• £954 (PI hunt) or £258 for follow-up BVD testing

For sheep this means:

• £574 for health plan + drench check
• £658 for endemic disease testing

Give us a call to discuss the pathway today!

Annual Red Tractor Health Plans

We will now be encouraging Red Tractor Health Plans to be carried out annually. Paperwork will be emailed out to you in advance of your review date, and prompt return of your health plan data within 2 weeks will result in a 10% discount on fees!

This will help to ensure that your farm is reviewed annually as per Red Tractor requirements, rather than every 18 months, and that problems don’t slip through the net.

It will also avoid the rush when the inspection notification arrives!

Anaemia in Camelids

Anaemia

Anaemia is a common clinical presentation in alpacas. Anaemia can be assessed by checking eye membrane colour regularly. We would recommend checking eye colour at least monthly, but with increased frequence during high-risk periods.

The most common cause of Anaemia in camelids is Haemonchus (barber pole worm) but this isn’t the only cause.

Haemonchus contortus

Haemonchus contortus, also known as Barber’s pole worm, lives in the C3 and feeds on blood. Each worm can ingest up to 0.05ml/day so an alpaca with 5000 worms may lose 250mls blood daily. Each adult female worm can produce 5000-15,000 eggs so high levels of infection and blood loss can happen quickly. A dry spell followed by warm, wet weather creates perfect conditions for a sudden surge in Haemonchus. Weekly eye membrane checks can help pick up affected animals so treatment can be started as early as possible. Larvae can suck enough blood to cause disease, which means that worm egg counts can be negative as adults have not developed yet to produce eggs.

Treatment requires an appropriate anthelmintic, and in some cases blood transfusions to help replace blood lost.

Prevention is the best cure – regularly poo picking will reduce eggs on the pasture. Eggs hatch every 3-5 days, therefore poo picking at least every 3 days is important to reduce larvae. Everyday poo picking would reduce this further; the more you pick, the less there is to find!

Mycoplasma

Mycoplasma haemolamae is a bacterium which attaches to the red blood cells of camelids. The majority of alpacas infected with this bacteria show no signs of infection. However if your animal becomes immunocompromised through other diseases, or is stressed from a move, birthing, weaning, shearing or through other environmental changes (like extreme heat), MH can rear its ugly head.

Quite often we see and treat alpacas with Haemonchus which don’t respond fully to treatment. In these cases, Mycoplasma is then often subsequently found. There is no cure, but treatment can be given to suppress it to a more controlled level.

The exact mode of transmission is not fully understood, but is generally believed to occur through:

• Blood transfer: Contaminated needles, surgical equipment, or shared shearing tools.
• Vector-borne: Potential transmission by arthropods such as biting flies, fleas, or ticks.
• Vertical transmission: In utero transmission from dam to cria can occur

Therefore it is very important to use fresh needles for every animal when vaccinating and injecting all drugs.

C3 Ulcers

Camelids have a third stomach compartment (C3), 80% of which is non-glandular and the distal 20% of which is glandular and secretes acid. There is a distinct line of demarcation between the two zones, which is where ulcers tend to form. Ulcers vary in size, number and depth.

Camelids with C3 ulceration may present with vague signs of colic. Weanlings, more than any other group, may regurgitate frequently with excessive salivation. It is not easy to definitively diagnose these ulcers, since it is not possible to pass an endoscope all the way to C3. Thickening and oedema in the wall of C3 on ultrasound is suggestive of ulceration. Treatment involves suppressing the stomach acid to allow C3 to recover. Unfortunately we can get fully perforated ulcers which leads to fatal peritonitis.

Chronic Anaemia

Any illness which suppresses the bone marrow or spleen will affect the production of red blood cells. Alpacas can get blood cancers such as lymphoma. Its always worth getting those not responding to typical treatments checked by us.

Worm Egg Count Machine: UPDATE!

We have officially named our new Ovacyte machine: Scooby Poo!

Thank you to everyone who came to our Christmas Market event and took part in the naming competition.

Scooby Poo is used regularly for worm egg counts and can provide highly sensitive detection of eggs in faecal samples. Last year we offered farms their 10th worm egg count free of charge, and we will be repeating this offer for 2026!

The Ovacyte machine also allows us to offer further speciation of parasites. It is already able to speciate for Haemonchus, making this test more accessible due to lower costs and quicker turnaround.

Coccidia Speciation

Coccidia are parasites that can cause diarrhoea and weight loss in young animals, usually 1-2 months old. Some species are pathogenic whereas others cause no disease; it is not possible to differentiate them on normal worm egg counts, making treatment decisions difficult.

Our Ovacyte machine uses AI technology (artificial intelligence- not insemination!) to identify which oocysts are pathogenic, which will allow us to determine when treatment is likely to be beneficial.

Routine samples can be dropped off at our Weedon or Burcote Road clinics, we kindly ask you contact Debbie in our farm office so we know when they are arriving.

Are you EID ready?

Electronic identification (EID) ear tags become compulsory for all calves born from January 2027. The tags, which contain a microchip which stores a unique 15-digit animal identification number, can be read from up to 1m away, in the dark or when dirty via an EID reader. The scheme is designed to help improve biosecurity by allowing faster, more accurate tracing of livestock movements in the event of a disease outbreak. The tags will need to be applied as one of the two required ear tags from the new year onwards. Cattle already tagged will not need to be re-tagged, the scheme only applies to newborns.

Whilst we are on the topic of tagging calves, especially now they are out at grass – please remember that calves need to be registered with BCMS by the day the calf is 27 days old. Registering after this deadline is a more complicated process requiring DNA testing of the dam and calf to prove parentage so there is definitely an incentive to getting everyone registered in time.