Displaying items by tag: animal health

Farmers with experience and breeding knowledge are deeply concerned about the pressure to breed for low methane sheep traits and its effects on other important traits they have been pursuing over the last 100 years.

"I'm not what you would consider a Formula One farmer, but I must be doing something right,” says Fonterra farmer Francis Smits, who is quick to point out that he and his wife Regina have a simple set up on their Reporoa farm.

We all recognise the symptoms of a classic down cow: dull eyes, sleepy, head down, poor responsiveness.

Kiwi agri-tech start-up Bovonic, behind the mastitis detection technology QuadSense, has secured a $940,000 capital investment to help get it to dairy farmers sooner.

A biosecurity levy, imposed on dairy farmers to fight Mycoplasma bovis, will reduce by 66% from next month.

A national pest management plan to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis (M. bovis) will come into effect by the end of this year.

In 2018, faced with a Salmonella outbreak among his calves and the effects of the subsequent vaccination, Waikato dairy farmer Cole Townsend turned to social media for a solution.

Pat and Shelley Schnuriger’s resolve to reduce their Holstein Friesian herd to 100 cows has proven its worth, with an exceptional percow production backing up their decision.

Building on their groundbreaking work in mastitis prevention, FIL, a subsidiary of GEA Farm Technologies New Zealand, is collaborating with Farm Medix to introduce innovative solutions to enhance milk quality, improve profitability, and combat anti-microbial resistance (AMR).

Better genetics hold the key to better beef calves from dairy cows. That was the key message from a series of workshops by Beef+Lamb NZ to increase the overall value of beef exports to NZ. Two thirds of NZ’s beef kill is from the dairy industry but calves from dairy farms have in the past been seen as more of a by-product. Peter Burke reports.