Turning annual animal health plans from a “must do” box-ticking exercise into useful, living parts of farm decision-making can be as rewarding for vets as it is for their farmer clients.
Mark Bryan, managing director of VetSouth, said while animal health plans (AHPs) may be a regulatory requirement, they also offer an exceptional opportunity for goal-setting and review during the farm year.
His company has had its drystock clients on AHPs for the past decade, and in fully digitised form for the past seven years for ease of access, update and sharing.
“It also means we are building up an exceptionally good picture district by district of KPIs our clients like to be able to compare their performance with, whether it is scanning percentages, lambing percentages, or weights, for example.
“It becomes much easier for them to identify areas of opportunity to target during the season.”
Importantly, he said, the plans capture not only stock numbers, but the multiple stock types that often comprise a drystock operation’s livestock population. This will often contrast to the straightforward population of a typical dairy operation.
Because of the stock class complexity, setting a plan at the start of the season affords an opportunity for vet and farmer clients to get around the kitchen table and under the hood of the farm’s system, and the farmer’s goals for the coming year.
He said the top quartile of VetSouth’s farmers develop a plan that is broken into three, or even four, parts through the farming year, with review periods attached to each stage.
“The idea of having a single annual plan set at the start of the year invariably involves a big dump of information all at once. It’s a lot to take in over one sitting. If you are going to invest the time in a plan, it often can be better to split it up.”
Setting a plan to start with also helps know what products will be needed, and can identify early if they will indeed be available at a time when product outages are becoming more common with drench, antibiotic and clostridial products.
“Having a plan at the start of the year means we can identify needs early, and be in a position to know that, yes, we can source that, or no, that will not be an option.”
Meantime splitting up the review periods during the farming year keeps the plan running and current.
“For example, you may have your first review pre-Christmas, which would be post-lambing post-weaning. It is a good opportunity to sit down and review some of the things you may have changed up over that time, for example maybe you dropped your clostridials for some ewes – you can see how that actually went, or not.”
Minds are usually far clearer recalling successes and failures if reviewing only weeks after the decision’s impact was felt, rather than waiting a year for a retrospective end of season review.
Post-spring reviews may include taking a closer look at parasite management, something more farmers are aware of, as greater resistance emerges.
“It is an area we are all getting better at, but could always do more in, a bit like parenting at times,” he said.
He agrees animal health budgets are close to their absolute minimum right now, with little left to cut out.
“But I think the upside for us here in Southland is we do have some very progressive, passionate sheep farmers. They are doing what they do because they are committed to it – if they weren’t you’d probably find they would have converted to dairying years ago.”
That includes a good cohort of younger farmers keen to adopt new tech and learn more about their options in the face of challenges like parasite resistance.
“That is also matched with a good group of younger vets who are committed to the sheep and beef sector because of the variety and interest it offers them, so it’s a good match at a tough time.”
For this reason, it has been easier to avoid the AHP sessions becoming box-ticking missions, and helping them evolve into highly productive, honest, and proactive consulting sessions.
More: This article was made possible by Zoetis.