Farm Animal Practice

Toft Lodge Veterinary Centre is situated in a rural area, and  the farm animal side of the practice continues to be a major part of our work.  In the face of the constantly changing farming environment, management and prevention are rapidly superseding the old fashioned fire brigade approach of the quintessential farm vet.  Although obviously we still perform a lot of ‘emergency’ treatment, modern approaches involve working towards maximising production and efficiency on farms, with emphasis on preventative medicine and herd health.

Pigs

Norman Jackson has over 40 years experience in pig medicine, and is a member of the Pig Veterinary Society. He is qualified to carry out the Farm Assurance inspections on behalf of Assured British Meats (ABM). Nicky Lumley and James Blanshard are also involved in regular pig work for the practice. All aspects of pig work are provided, from emergency farrowings to post-mortems and advisory visits.

Cattle

At Toft Lodge we cater for all types of cattle farm – from 1 to 350 cows. Nicky Lumley has a special interest in dairy cattle medicine and runs the Interherd computer programme at the practice for many of our dairy clients. This allows all the herd records to be kept on our computer database, enabling visit lists to be produced for our farmers, and easy analysis of the fertility of the herd.

Routine visits are carried out for fertility work, allowing cost effective use of vet’s time. Ultrasound scanning is routinely used on these visits. Nicky is also certified to provide the compulsory Herd Health Plans for dairy herds, and is happy to carry out investigations into herd problems such as mastitis.

Beef cattle provide less regular work for the practice, but full out of hours service is provided for those difficult calvings and staggers cases.

Sheep

As with most practices most of our sheep work is during the lambing season. However, we are increasingly becoming involved in flock health planning for forward-thinking sheep farmers wishing to maximize productivity.

DEFRA Work

All 3 of our vets are LVI’s (Local Veterinary Inspectors) and can therefore carry out work on behalf of DEFRA – TB  and Brucellosis testing, export certification etc.

Our most recent farm client newsletter can be viewed here