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SAC Key Messages At Scotsheep
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John Vipond at Scotsheep 2010 (opens in new window)
SAC was well represented at the successful Scotsheep event, organised by the Scottish region of the National Sheep Association on Mains of Burnbank Farm, Blair Drummond, near Stirling.
Stirling-based Farm Business Services, Senior Consultant Colin MacPhail served on the organising committee and other SAC staff were involved in the seminars and activity on the SAC stand.
Addressing a seminar on nutrition, SAC Sheep Specialist John Vipond stressed the need to meet the ewes' needs and the consequences of not doing so. He did so against the background of a challenging winter and a slow, cold spring. Both these events had upset flockmasters' plans and John urged them to think again about their feeding strategy for the year ahead, including next winter. He also stressed the need to consider how hoggets were to be managed. (Hear more on the SAC podcast)
During another seminar on climate change and renewable energy, Ulster farmer and SAC Board member John Gilliland, who chairs the Government’s Rural Climate Change Forum, described climate change and low carbon farming as “the fastest agenda to hit farmers in the last twenty years”.
He explained it was not only being driven by new legislation. There were new market place developments, such as carbon footprinting of food products. Equally important was the real desire, both nationally and internationally, to start tackling the issue of food security and global food poverty. Many people do not recognise these two agendas are interconnected, but global poverty will never be addressed unless we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions now and make agrifood systems more resilient to our changing climate into the future.
According to John Gilliland, “Of all the environmental agendas which farmers have to deal with, low-carbon agriculture makes good business sense. If implemented correctly, a low-carbon farmer is an efficient and profitable farmer.”
John explained to his audience that if the industry ignores this debate and does not get out and sell its other strengths such as sequestering greenhouse gases in trees, hedges and permanent grass, or the work it does to sell biodiversity, then the agenda will overtake the industry and the real loser will be the ruminant sector.
Visitors to the SAC stand at Scotsheep could read information on the latest research into the place of chicory in sheep diets, and recent developments in the control of foot rot. Both topics attracted keen interest as did other issues surrounding sheep health. One of the most important warnings issued by SAC vets concerns the threat posed to lambs by nematodirus worms. The recent climatic conditions will encourage a mass hatching of these parasites which cause sickness and sudden death. SAC vets advise that if unexplained deaths occur in lambs, freshly dead carcasses should be submitted to SAC Disease Surveillance Centres (DSCs) for post-mortem examination.
If it is confirmed or where risk factors apply, then treatment should start once the lambs reach 6 weeks. Don’t wait for signs of scouring, but treat with a wormer effective against nematodirus. As the rise in worm numbers can be rapid, two doses, at 7-10 day intervals, are recommended. (Hear more about nematodirus and its treatment in an SAC podcast interview with Vet Douglas Gray).