2016 is turning out to be a rather busy season.
Along with the political disruption affecting England, there seems to be variance in extreme weather where five inches of rain in an hour has become common place in recent weeks. As expected, this has created a lot of issues with birds on rearing fields and some of the early birds just going to wood. The warm and wet temperatures have been especially ideal for bacteria and worms. I have been seeing gape worms on rearing fields, in places that have never experienced these problems. With this in mind, proactive routine visits have come into their own this year with us constantly monitoring every age range of birds and reassessing our approaches to keep the birds as healthy as possible, given the weather. Interestingly, a recent site that had a heavy delude of rain and flooding of 60% of the sheds, have actually had relatively few issues post flooding, as their gut health was extremely good before the flooding. It just goes to show good gut health is a major player in keeping birds alive even in extreme climatic conditions.
Hoping to get the shorts out next week, fingers crossed that things will start to improve.
Kenny
Dr Kenny Nutting BVet Med MRCVS