Animal Health
and Welfare

Improve Animal Health and Welfare Agreement:

We’re always happy to offer advice on the Improve Animal Health and Welfare Agreement (IAHW, previously the Animal Health and Welfare Review, also known as Pathway) and the follow-up endemics package.

Please get in touch with the practice for further information.

For cattle, the focus remains on BVD. For a beef herd review, blood sampling must be carried out and for a dairy herd, a bulk milk PCR. Once we’ve taken these samples, the remaining funded time can be spent on a production area of most benefit to your farm. For those who already carry out BVD testing, speak to your vet before booking in your review for optimum timing.

For sheep, a number of different open-ended options exist.
We suggest reading the information below and considering at which point in the production cycle – pre-tupping, post-tupping, baby lambs, older lambs – your flock may be experiencing losses.

Ewe condition: Aims to increase the health and performance of ewes on farm. This will help to increase the overall health of the flock and increase the likelihood of successful tupping and lamb raising.

Reproductive performance: Aims to increase reproductive performance of ewes post-tupping, therefore increasing the number of successful pregnancies and reducing the number of abortions.

Lamb performance: Aims to reduce disease levels in lambs over the age of 30 days. It includes the weaning stages and moving onto pasture.

Neonatal lamb survival: Aims to reduce disease levels in lambs under the age of 30 days and increase survival.

External parasites: Aims to reduce the levels of external parasites; this is especially important where external parasites are causing other issues on farms and are resulting in a major welfare concern to the sheep.

Lameness: Aims to reduce the levels of lameness on farm regardless of cause.

Testing must be carried out in all cases – you can find full details of possible testing options on the government website.

Get in touch

Have a question or need to book an appointment? We’re here to help.