Sheep

Consultancy Service

One of our partners, Tim Bebbington, is a full member of the Register of Sheep Advisors (ROSA), has been president of the Sheep Veterinary Society and served as a director of the Moredun Foundation , as well as providing advise to sheep farmers in Devon and Cornwall for many years. He provides a bespoke consultancy service to farmers via a monthly subscription, including several yearly visits, timely advice, and lambing data analysis.

Flock Health Planning

Health planning should improve your flock’s performance and profitability. We aim to go above and beyond the Red Tractor requirements, working with motivated farmers to ensure their flock hits targets for scanning, lamb growth and lamb survival. We can also provide you with follow up support and additional resources such as disease management protocols tailored to your farm.

Parasite Monitoring

Castle Vets can provide in-house faecal eggs counts using dung samples from your farm. We are now using the new OvaCyte machine which reduces the turnaround time, while providing accurate and reliable results. Monitoring gut worm populations in this way aids worming protocols, informs you of wormer drench resistance on your farm, and can help reduce the cost of unnecessary treatments. We are also able to analyse skin scrapes and fleece plucks to diagnose lice or mites, as well as perform coccidiosis counts in house.

Disease Investigation and Screening

Our Cull Ewe blood monitoring service provides discounted screening for Maedi Visna (MV), Johnes, Chlamydia and Toxoplasmosis. We also routinely carry out MV testing for our MV-accredited flocks, or those buying in from unknown sources. Comprehensive lameness investigations and management plans can be carried out, to reduce issues like foot rot or strip in your flock, saving you time and money, whilst promoting the welfare of your sheep.

Flock Discussion Group

Castle Vets runs a large and successful flock club, bringing together forward-thinking sheep farmers across Devon and Cornwall. This monthly subscription covers your health planning, attendance to our excellent discussion groups and in house parasite monitoring. The club has a range of members, including both indoor and outdoor lambing flocks. We’d love for you to join us – please give our reception a call to find out more.

Research Projects

Castle Vets have been involved in multiple research projects over the past fifty years. We pride ourselves in our innovative attitude towards providing veterinary care and have partnered with DEFRA and large research institutes such as the Moredun Institute in Scotland. We can support and manage on farm research projects, which are likely to become more common place with the change in farm funding structure and grants available.

Emergencies

As an independent practice, we manage all emergencies amongst our own team of vets. Our on-call vet holds the phone, meaning you can always get directly through to the person you need. Both our Liskeard and Launceston surgeries are set up to receive lambings out of hours, reducing the call out fee and ensuring the cleanest conditions possible, should we have to perform a caesarean. Just call our normal Launceston number to speak to our emergency vet – 01566 772371.