Newsletter – November 2009
1. Farmer Meeting – Beef Fertility
We have our first meeting for the Land Skills East Midlands Animal Health and Welfare Training Programme coming
up this month. The meeting will be held at The Royal Oak Pub in Bitteswell on Tuesday the 17th November at 7pm
with the presentation to start at 8pm. Please phone the Lutterworth Surgery to book a place at the meeting.
2. New Anti-inflammatory Product – Rimadyl Cattle
Pfizer Animal Health have recently brought out a new anti-inflammatory injection – Rimadyl Cattle. This is a similar
type of drug to Flunixin, Metacam and Ketofen. These drugs alleviate the main symptoms of inflammation, such as
a high temperature, pain and swelling and hence reduce long term tissue damage. Therefore, it can be used to
help in treating any problem which causes inflammation such as pneumonia, mastitis, injuries, downer cows, after
difficult calvings and post calving infections.
Rimadly Cattle is fast acting, long lasting (one dose lasts several days) and has a zero milk withdrawal.
It is given as an injection at 1ml per 35kg under the skin and available in 50ml bottles.
3. Bluetongue Update
At the time of writing, there have been no cases of bluetongue in the UK so far this year. This situation in Northern
Europe is relatively quiet; however, there is some disease in France; 61 farms have disease, made up of 53 of
BTV8, 5 of BTV 1 and 3 of BTV 1 and 8. The latest cases of BTV1 was in Seine-Maritime on September 5th, close to
the Channel coast, and therefore still a potential source of infection to the UK by disease spread across the
channel.
4. Micotil
Micotil can now be used in milking cows. We have used it successfully to treat milking cows at drying off known to
be infected with Staph Aureus e.g. (chronic high cell count cows and recurrent mastitis cows.)
Due to safety concerns Micotil can only be administered by a Veterinary Surgeon. However, we can treat
recently dried off cows with Micotil whilst on farm for other reasons such as routine visits and TB tests, to help
reduce call out fees. The milk withhold time for Micotil is 35 days (Meat withhold is 60 days). If you want to
discuss the use of Micotil in milking cows, please give us a call at the Lutterworth Branch 01455 552117.