Large Animal

Routine Visits

Park Issa offers a routine visit service, where one of our large animal vets will come to your farm on a regular basis (usually fortnightly or monthly) to carry out fertility and health planning work. These visits can help you identify potential problems and improve your herd’s fertility and hence profitability. We have several portable ultrasound scanners which we can use to look at ovarian activity and diagnose pregnancy from as early as 30 days. These visits help us to closely work closely with you and to understand the specific problems and management issues on your farm and can help you to improve your herd’s performance.

Embryo Implantation and Storage

Do you have problems with repeat breeder cows or want to improve the genetic quality of your herd? We have recently acquired  a liquid nitrogen storage tank that enables us to store commercial or pedigree embryos, which one of our specially trained team can implant for you. A 7 day old commercial embryo can be implanted into the repeat breeder cow to improve the pregnancy rate compared to with artificial insemination alone, or we can store pedigree embryos flushed from your high genetic merit cows, to implant at a later date.

Herd Health planning

Herd health plans are required by both milk buyers and farm assurance schemes and can also be helpful in identifying and solving problems within your he

rd, thus improving productivity. One of Park Issa’s large animal vets will visit your farm to discuss the protocols with you and help make sense of the paperwork!

TB testing

Although TB testing is the bane of farmers’ lives, they are a necessary requirement these days. We have five large animal vets who carry out routine whole herd TB testing as well as pre-movement tests required before the movement of individuals. As regulations regarding TB testing change as the TB situation changes, Park Issa can also assist in liasing with DEFRA if any queries arise.

Foot Trimming

Almost every cattle farm will have a few persistently lame cows who continue to cause concern despite ongoing treatment . All of our large animal vets have been trained to trim and treat cows’ feet to alleviate these problems. If you don’t have the facilities to handle cattle for lameness work, we have our own portable foot crush which we can bring to your premises.

Large Animal Diagnostic Services

A lot of large animal work now includes health screening as well as diagnostic sampling. Park Issa has a practice laboratory which has the facilities to perform several routine procedures including running  blood samples for basic metabolic profiles to detect problems such as milk fever and check faeces samples for worm and fluke eggs and parasites such as coccidia. The faecal sample check is useful to make sure your current wormer is effective in your herd or flock health and to see if any resistance is present or developing.

Herd/ Flock Accreditation Schemes

Park Issa’s team of large animal vets can help you with herd/flock health and accreditation schemes. Many of our sheep farmers are accredited for Maedi Visna, which involves blood sampling a proprtion of the flock every three years after and initial whole flock test. Our vets will come and visit to take the samples which are sent to the Scottish Agricultural College for analysis. We also offer testing services for barren ewes, abortion problems in cattle and sheep and specific diseases such as Johnes and BVD.

Ram Fertility Exams

Have you had problems with ewes repeating or poor conception rates or thinking about buying or selling a good breeding ram? We have the equipment and facilities to check ram fertility before he is put in with the ewes for tupping. Usually carried out in late summer /early autumn, the check involves a visual check, palpation and measurement. We also microscopically examine a semen sample to check the health and motility of the sperm.