The health of our breeders and our stud sale stock is very important. We have an annual vaccination program in place in order to keep them at their best.

Our annual program includes:

 - Tick Fever, 3 Germ blood for all calves and introduced cattle.

 - 7 in 1

 - 3 Day for bulls only

 - Pestigard, for all cattle.

We have recently been testing our entire herd for the prescence of PI (Persistently infected) cattle for pestivirus. We began testing after the 2009 Brisbane Exhibition, and subsequently a field day at Norco, Beaudesert,  where we were alerted to the dangers of this insidious diesease. We conducted 100 PI tests in October 2009, and another 40 in May 2010, and all 140 have been negative. We tested every animal that does not have progeny, which means all calves and young heifers, as well as any cows whose calves had all been culled or sold. The reason behind this is that any animal who is not a PI, must not have a parent who is a PI. Any animal that is a PI, either has a parent with it, or was infected in the first trimester of pregnancy and not aborted.

Our testing was done by Swans Veterinary Services clinic in WA using the ear punch kit. For more information on pestivirus (also known as BVDV, Bovine Viral Diahorrea virus) visit the BVDV page at www.swansvet.com . It is expensive at approx $11 per test including the punch kit, but I guess the effects if you are infected with pestivirus, and your herd has no immunity would be more costly and devastating.

A part of herd health is nutrition. We have begun feeding minerals separately in a weatherproof trough, in order to see which the cows think they are lacking in. We are currently feeding calcium, dicalphos, superior mineral supplement, sulphur blocks and fermafos in 5 tubs. Due to the lignification of our pastures during winter, we are also feeding a urea/ molasses mix in a roller drum to increase rumen activity. We have also started feeding chocolate as an energy source.

Recently, we separated all of our heifers fro the main herd, and have begun running them on better quality feed in an attempt to get them into calf earlier. during winter, the heifers are usually bossed away from any supplementary feed, so they previously only used to get to grow during summer. We currently have 38 pure and crossbred heifers of various ages running on improved pastures that have recently benefitted from unusual winter rain. The oldest of these will be joined in November, with the cows.