The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) will host a webinar for its members centred on mastitis in the sheep industry and the impacts it has on businesses.
The webinar, which takes place from 7.00pm on Monday, February 20, 2023, will feature speakers Dr Dawn Bowness from Clevedale Veterinary Practice and AHDB animal health and welfare scientist Dr Bethan John.
Mastitis is thought to cost the UK’s sheep industry more than £120 million per year in direct and indirect costs, AHDB said, and the webinar will focus on the causes of mastitis and how to reduce preventable culling from the disease.
Bowness and John are set to discuss the following topics:
- Causes, signs and risk factors of the disease;
- Management practices to reduce mastitis incidence;
- The Challenge Sheep project – what can be learned from cull ewe data.
Booking for the event is essential and payment is covered by the AHDB levy which is paid by members.
AHDB Challenge Sheep project
AHDB’s Challenge Sheep project aims to develop best practice for managing replacement ewes as well as a better understanding of how management in a ewe’s first productive year can affect lifetime performance.
The Challenge Sheep project, which began in 2017, is funded by the board’s beef and lamb sector and involves 11 farms across the country recording and sharing data to generate new knowledge and highlight existing information on managing ewe replacements.
The monitor covers both sheep bred as ewe lambs and as shearlings and the project is tracking 7,000 replacements from a range of English sheep farms.
Using electronic identification (EID), the farms monitor weight; body condition score (BCS); lambing data; and lamb performance.
Producers taking part in Challenge Sheep submit their data to AHDB at key points throughout the year.
