Animal Health Ireland

In partnership with Animal Health Ireland, Highfield offer consultations to livestock producers and processors which aim to provide the knowledge, education and coordination required to establish effective control programs for non-regulated diseases of livestock.

Here at Highfield Farm Animal, our vets have undergone the various training sessions to conduct the TASAH investigations available through AHI. Call us today to find out more and book a consult.

Parasite Control

Effective and timely parasite control on farm has significant impacts on animal health, farm productivity and the processing industry. Reduced feed conversion due to parasite burdens, and decreased overall animal health on farm can be minimised with a strategic approach to tackling parasites on farm. The changing weather patterns and combination of housing and grazing systems used in Irish farms necessitate a tailored approach for many farms, which is best designed by individual farmers working closely with their vets.

BVD TASAH Herd Investigation

BVD is a viral disease of cattle caused by BVD virus. Infection can result in a wide range of clinical signs including:

Reproductive problems, including failure to conceive, abortion and birth defects.
Calves that survive infection during early pregnancy are born persistently infected (PI) with the virus.
PI cattle may develop a fatal condition called mucosal disease.

Cell Check TASAH -
Dry Cow Consult

CellCheck is the national mastitis control programme, coordinated and facilitated by Animal Health Ireland.

It is developed and delivered in partnership with industry bodies representing farmers, processors, service providers and government. We do not need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to mastitis control; we do, however, need to make sure that all the wheels run smoothly and in the same direction. This is where CellCheck has a role to play.

Irish Johne’s Control Program

Johne’s disease is a bacterial disease of cattle and other ruminants for which there is no cure. It is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP), hence the other name for the disease Paratuberculosis. Cattle usually become infected as calves early in life by drinking or eating milk or food contaminated with the bacteria, which are shed in the dung or milk of infected adult cattle.

IBR

The initials ‘IBR’ stand for ‘Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis’ indicating that the disease spreads between cattle (Infectious Bovine) and usually causes the nose (Rhino-) and upper airways (-trache-) to become inflamed (-it is).

It is caused by a viral infection. The disease usually occurs when an animal is first exposed to a herpes virus called ‘Bovine Herpes Virus-1’ (BoHV-1).

The severity of disease caused by infection with BoHV-1 can vary from inapparent to very severe

Pig Health Check

Pig HealthCheck is an Animal Health Ireland-led programme co-funded by pig producers and DAFM, with the aim of improving the profitability and sustainability of the Irish pig industry through improved animal health.

Beef Health Check

The programme has developed tools to assist farmers and their veterinary practitioners to control losses due to liver fluke and pneumonia through capture, analysis and reporting of abattoir data from post mortem meat inspection. The programme is also contributing to the development, by ICBF, of economic breeding indices that incorporate health and disease data.

Calf Care

Calfhood diseases have a major impact on the economic viability of farm operations, due to the direct costs of calf losses and treatment and the long term effects on performance. On top of the financial losses, calf diseases also account for additional workloads and frustrations for the people responsible for the care of the calves on farm. On many farms, calf health and performance can be improved markedly by introducing some simple and inexpensive changes.

Biosecurity

The term biosecurity encompasses both bioexclusion (keeping infectious diseases out of holdings) and biocontainment (reducing infectious disease threats within the farm). The work of the Biosecurity TWG contributes to that of the BVD, IBR, Calf Health, Johne’s disease, Mastitis and Parasite TWGs and vice versa.