The Farm Sustainability Learning Hub Series 2024 is brought to you by Agriland Media Group in association with Bord Bia.
Using guidelines from Animal Health Ireland and Teagasc, Bord Bia has developed a number of animal health and welfare modules to support the highest standards on Irish farms.
Five animal welfare modules are currently available: an introductory module, a calf welfare module, and specific modules for sheep, dairy, and beef.
This article will look at the sheep, dairy and beef animal health and welfare modules.
Sheep
The sheep module reinforces and promotes current best practices for sheep health and welfare, including lamb and lambing management, disease prevention and breeding decisions.
The module covers:
- The importance of mineral supplementation and scanning pre-lambing;
- Best practice management strategies for better health and welfare during lambing and post-lambing;
- Breeding decisions that provide better health outcomes for your sheep and a more productive enterprise for you;
- Improving the health of your flock by using body condition scoring (BCS), a clean policy management system and steps to prevent lameness;
- The importance of an animal health programme in the prevention of disease and anthelminthic resistance.
Dairy
This module reinforces and promotes current best practices for dairy cow health and welfare including drying-off, calving, milk recording, BCS, disease prevention and breeding decisions. It will take 30 minutes to complete.
The module covers:
- The impacts of drying-off and housing;
- The benefits of milk recording;
- Measures to control and treat mastitis and Somatic Cell Count (SCC);
- The importance of using BCS to meet cyclical targets;
- How to identify, treat and proactively prevent lameness;
- Optimisation of breeding decisions with dairy tools, such as Economic Breeding Index (EBI), Dairy Beef Index (DBI) and sexed semen.
Beef
The beef module is designed for suckler beef farmers and takes 30 minutes to complete. The module explores best practice in animal health and welfare from pre to post-calving, with specific attention on handling practices, physical health and breeding decisions.
Four main topics are covered:
Topic one: Calving management
In this topic, you will learn about best practices of hygiene, nutrition, pain and stress management and weaning.
Topic two: Herd health
In this topic, you will learn steps to support herd health, including the importance of BCS and disease management.
Topic three: Safe housing and handling
In this topic, you will learn about best housing and handling practices. Safe handling requires a safe environment that considers feed space, floor space, water and ventilation.
Topic four: Genetic improvement
In this topic, you will learn about breeding management and indices that may influence breeding decisions.
Learning Hub Series
Join the thousands of other farmers who have registered for the Farm Sustainability Learning Hub.
Visit farm.bordbia.ie to enrol in the Farm Sustainability Learning Hub.
You will be asked to enter your herd number and the pin number you received at your last audit. If you do not know this, there is a ‘forgot pin’ option that will text the pin to your mobile phone.