Animal Health Planning

Farmers can improve the health, welfare and productivity of their animals through animal health planning. Animal Health Planning is a continuous improvement method that encourages the development of health building and disease control measures appropriate to the particular farm circumstances leading to a system that is progressively less dependent on veterinary medicines without jeopardising welfare.

So how do I do this in practice?

A herd health plan should consider the following aspects:

A farm animal health plan is an active management tool aimed at promoting the health and welfare of farm animals by setting out disease prevention, detection and management procedures. It should be based on farm specific issues and at its most basic, it should be ensure that illness, injury and mortality amongst farmed animals are at minimum levels. More progressively, it should also be seen as providing procedures that promote positive health and welfare.)

Background information

Most farm and health plans start by listing some key details about your farm, such as the farm address and key farm personnel and other important farm contacts such as the farm vet and feed suppliers. Also details about your stock, such as numbers, breeds, and age of your herd or flock.

Record keeping and monitoring

In order to effectively reduce both disease and medicine use, it is necessary to understand what the current levels are, and therefore a disease recording and monitoring system needs to be in place. An animal health plan can only be fully operational once the disease recording and monitoring systems has been implemented. The information from these systems allows an accurate analysis of medicine use and the herd or flock status and a plan can be designed taking into account the specific features of each farm. It is important that a local vet is involved in health planning to ensure good understanding of the local disease situation.

Preventing Disease Entering the herd

Herd Health Security

A herd health security plan highlights all of the likely risk factors concerning the introduction of contagious diseases from outside the herd. Farmers should be aware of which diseases are in the local area and what the risk factors of importing them onto the farm are. Risks can be broadly classed into those concerning:
• The introduction of new or returning animals;
• Contact with other animals via shared resources with other farms and animals, such as shared grazing, water courses;
• Introducing disease via humans or equipment entering a farm.

Closed herd/flock policy

A genuine closed herd/flock is one where no animals are brought in even on a temporary basis (e.g., a rented bull, show animals). If breeding animals or show animals are likely to be bought occasionally, a biosecurity policy for such occasions should be established identifying the quarantine and isolation measure for sick and bought-in stock.

Disease Reduction and Control Plan

The plan should consider each identified disease or syndrome, and establish ways in which the potential or identified risk factors can be reduced or eliminated. The plan should start with those diseases that have been identified as the main problems on the farm as a result of the monitoring process. New diseases and conditions can be added to the plan as time and herdsman motivation allow.

For example, high mastitis levels or poor milk quality should lead to a mastitis reduction plan that identifies risk factors (e.g. high stocking densities in housing, poor milking machine function etc.) and ways to eliminate them (e.g. establishment of a new straw yard, dynamic testing of the milking machine annually/new parlour etc.). The mastitis reduction plan should state clearly the current disease levels and set targets and monitoring systems for reduction (e.g. mastitis incidence records and SCC records will be analyzed every six months; a reduction from 55 cases per 100 cows to 45 cases per 100 cows is planned to be achieved in 12 months).