The Cornerstone of HB Pastoral farming

Vet Services is particularly proud of our longstanding and close involvement with the sheep industry in Hawkes Bay.

Sheep production and medicine has come a long way in the past 50 years and Vet Services has been part of nearly every advance made in practical on-farm management.

• Introduction of vaccination programmes with vaccination against diseases such as clostridial infection (blood poisoning), salmonella, campylobacteriosis, toxoplasmosis.
• Introduction of anthelmintic and combination drenches as well as mineralised drenches.
• Disease control programmes such as earlier brucellosis vaccination of rams and now replaced by brucellosis monitoring and eradication programmes.
• Some of the first cases of drench resistance were reported by our veterinarians, in both sheep and in goats.
• Introduction of a large scale sheep pregnancy scanning service with accurate and cost effective run-through machines operated by our vets and technicians.
• Involvement in some very large artificial breeding programmes with both the release of exotic sheep breeds (such as the Finnish Landrace, the Texel, the Awassi and the East Friesian), as well as work with individual breeders with AI/ET programmes for advancement of superior genetics.
• Trial work for many drug companies, investigating efficacies and safety of many of the vaccines, drenches and dips available.  This is very precise work but gives us an insight into how well certain products work and gives us the confidence to include them into Animal Health Programmes.
• Involved in small locally important on-farm trials as well as a large funded study in 2000/2001 investigating the causes of vaginal prolaspe (bearings) in ewes that involved 300,000 ewes.
• Regular involvement in public programmes such as Meat and Wool Monitor farms, locally run field days and other national farmer field days. Vet Services are co-facilitators of the current Monitor Farm group in HB, with a new and exciting approach to this successful program.
• Regular attendance of Sheep Vet Conferences both within NZ and abroad.  With our intense involvement in our local sheep industry, our vets often present papers at these conferences.
• Development of Animal Health Plans to ensure the correct timing and use of all animal health products, as well as incorporating management and husbandry procedures for efficient and effective farming.

Sheep are the cornerstone of pastoral farming in Hawkes Bay and one of the main reasons that the HB Farmers Vet Club came into being.  Vet Services vets are passionate about sheep and sheep production.