Youngstock

Disease Outbreak Investigations

Both pneumonia and scour are the most common and costly diseases our team deal with in youngstock. With years of combined experience, our vets can guide you through the difficult periods of disease outbreak, and ensure your stock is protected in the future. Our Launceston surgery is set up with two bespoke calf pens, to house sick youngstock, should they need intravenous fluids or additional care.

Evaluation of Housing

Housing makes all the difference to youngstock health. Ventilation, space, reducing draughts and pen set up have a huge impact on your calf and youngstock growth and mortality rates, and so our team of vets are always happy to discuss your housing with you. From full evaluation to discussions over the phone, we aim to tailor our advice to your farm in a realistic and achievable manor.

Nutrition Advice

From milk feeding to weaning bucket calves, to formulating growing stock rations, our vets can advise how to get the most from your stock. Growth checks are costly and can also impact the general health of your youngstock, so nutritional transitions and balance are key.

Preventative Medicine

Prevention of disease is always better than cure. As an independent veterinary practice, we can use any vaccination available, made in the UK or overseas, to help your stock thrive. We can tailor herd vaccination protocols to your farm based on blood tests (after a disease outbreak) or samples (taken during the outbreak). These can be adapted and changed each year, depending on your farm setup and prevalence of disease.

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 perform coccidiosis counts in house.

Vet Technician Services

Our fully trained vet techs can provide tailored youngstock support on your farm. Busy calving season? Have our vet tech disbud your calves to save your time and effort.