About Sheep and Beef

Veterinary services for flocks, herds and individual animals

South Western Victoria is not only known for dairy cattle – it is also renowned for beef and sheep pastoral enterprises and our veterinary services reflect this. Many of the animal health interventions with these production systems are at the herd level. Pregnancy testing of a beef mob is a great example of this. However, full medicine and diagnostic skills can also be applied to an individual sheep, cow, bull or calf.

Beef herd pregnancy testing

The majority of beef herds employ manual pregnancy testing where the herd pregnancies range from 10 weeks upwards. CVC can also offer beef herds the option of ultrasound pregnancy testing provided the cattle handling facilities are appropriate and the range of pregnancies is around 7-16 weeks. For all preg testing services a cattle crush is not mandatory but it often makes the task easier. In most cases a short race in the yards is all that is required to complete the job safely.

Monitoring faecal egg counts in sheep

Conditions in Western Victoria are often conducive to the survival of round worm (ostertagia) eggs on pasture through most of the year. The vast majority of any properties worm burden resides on the pasture with the sheep being simply the intermediary by which the worms go from one generation to the next.

Monitoring sheep worm egg burdens, through faecal egg counts, is the standard way of assessing overall worm impact on animal health and the continued efficacy of worming treatments. It is especially important in young sheep due to their lack of immune system protection from the effects of round worms.

CVC offers a quick turn-around Faecal Egg Count monitoring service run through our in house lab. We can also organise a Drench Resistance Test to assess the viability of your current drenching program off the back of FEC results.