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Towan Veterinary Practice - Farm, Unit 8, Hayle Marine Renewables Business Park, Hayle (2026)

31/10/2026

The Monthly Routine #6 October 2026

Is your flukicide at housing a waste of money? Plus, why green fields aren’t always good news – we’ve seen grass staggers this month.

Autumn has well and truly arrived. After the dry summer we've had, the rain has finally turned up and the grass has come with it, which is behind the main topic this month.

Magnesium – staggers and the hidden cost in dry cows

In the last few weeks we've seen both ends of the magnesium deficiency spectrum. A beef animal at grass went down with a clinical case of staggers. On a dairy unit we saw a run of retained afterbirths and a prolapse that led us to blood sample the close up dry cows.

Cattle have no real store of magnesium, so they rely on getting a supply every day. Grass that has shot up after rain following a dry spell is lush and low in fibre. It's typically low in magnesium and high in potassium and nitrogen, especially where slurry or fertiliser has gone on. Both of these reduce how much magnesium is absorbed from the rumen. Cattle on grass alone with no supplementary feed are the most at risk.

Staggers is the classic presentation: twitchy cattle that wobble about then go down with convulsions. Quite often the first sign is a sudden death. It's an emergency so call us straight away and handle the animal as little as possible.

The dairy cases were quieter but arguably more costly. Blood sampling a handful of close up dry cows told us a lot. We checked energy levels (condition loss in the dry period is a common cause of retained afterbirths), protein intake and magnesium. On this farm, energy and protein were fine but magnesium was low. Low magnesium stops cows releasing calcium properly from their bones at calving. You may not see a classic milk fever, but low calcium can still show up as retained cleansings, prolapses, LDAs, mastitis and poor fertility.

There are several ways to get a reliable daily dose into cattle: in feed, boluses, high mag licks and buckets, or in the water. Which works best depends on how your cattle are managed, so contact us directly if you'd like to talk it through.

For dairy herds, calcium boluses at calving are often a useful tool alongside this, but which cows should get them is farm specific. Trace elements are another consideration as low selenium especially can be linked to retained afterbirths.

Housing doses – hold off on the flukicide (for now!)

The key message is that for most products, giving a flukicide on the day cattle come in is probably a waste of time and money. Most flukicides only kill fluke once they've reached a certain age, so any young fluke picked up in the last few weeks at grass will survive treatment and carry on developing. Treatment needs delaying, typically by 7 weeks or more depending on the product. Worth bearing in mind that worm/fluke combinations are often 3-4x the price of straight wormers. I'll go into more detail next month on whether fluke treatment is needed at all and when to give it.

Ivermectin at housing makes sense for calves coming in after their first season at grass. They haven't built up immunity to worms yet, and ivermectin clears out the inhibited larvae that sit dormant in the gut wall over winter and can cause serious scouring as they emerge in late winter and spring. Adult cows have usually built up enough immunity that a housing wormer isn't needed, and every unnecessary treatment adds to the resistance problem.

A lot of ivermectin goes on at housing purely to deal with lice. Pour on ivermectin does cover both biting and sucking lice, but using a wormer on adult cattle that don't need worming adds to your risk of ivermectin resistance. If lice are the only problem, a deltamethrin spot on may be the better choice as it also covers both types.

Registered clients, keep an eye on your inboxes for The Monthly Routine in full.

Any queries give the practice a call or contact me directly [email protected]

All the best,

Zack

26/09/2026

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐥𝐲 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞 #𝟓 — 𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔

𝐓𝐁 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 – 𝐄𝐦𝐦𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐝!

We're very excited that Emma Williams has now joined Towan and a lot of you will already know her.

She's been TB testing cattle in West Cornwall for seven years. Anyone who has had her stood next to their crush before will know that she's efficient, helpful with the stock and on the ball with the paperwork.

What's changed for Emma is that she is taking the lead on TB admin as well. This is going to make the process of booking in a test as simple as possible for everyone involved and having three people who can test which will help us manage the diary better.

Bringing someone with Emma's experience and reputation on board isn't something we take lightly and it's really a reflection of how much the farm side of Towan has grown over the past 6 months. It has also increased the capacity for us to register new farms and still offer the high level of service that we promised from the start. We’ve been assisting a few people to move their testing across in the last few weeks and it can be done with a single phone call or email.

𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞

BTV-3 is now confirmed on 𝟏,𝟖𝟑𝟐 premises across Great Britain (1,575 in England, 224 in Wales, 33 in Scotland) as of the 24th September. A further 𝟏,𝟐𝟒𝟖 suspected cases are still sitting in the system awaiting results, so the confirmed number will keep climbing.

Lab capacity has been stretched as testing ran through a single site at Pirbright for most of the outbreak. Defra brought its Weybridge lab online this month and a third site in Scotland (Moredun) is due from early October. I received positive results back this week from animals that were sampled in the first week of August which I make a 𝟕 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 turnaround time.

𝐁𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐅𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲

Autumn block calvers typically start serving at the end of November. For those with bulls running a pre breeding check in the next 3-4 weeks would leave time to act if there are any issues flagged.

Bluetongue causes high temperatures and this is one of the more reliable ways to negatively impact a bull's fertility for several months. Nobody currently has solid figures on exactly how long recovery takes in bulls, which makes a 𝐁𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐄𝐱𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 a very sensible idea. I’d especially recommend this if yours was under the weather or lame at any point this summer.

𝐒𝐅𝐈 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠

SFI26's second window opened and closed on the 22nd September, £𝟐𝟑𝟑 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 of funding gone in under six hours.

If you were counting on that and didn't submit in time, you're not alone and I wanted to recommend a couple of organisations that can offer advice and support.

Farm Cornwall offers free, independent business advice, and The Farming Community Network has a confidential national helpline.

If veterinary advice would be useful, the Animal Health and Welfare Review is still available to offer a funded visit.

As always, available directly at [email protected]

All the best,

Zack

22/09/2026

Long post alert! Sorry, but we felt that a whole year of Towan deserves some recognition!
⭐ One year ago:
Four of us, no clients, lots of shiny new kit, neatly stacked shelves and a clear vision of the sort of practice we wanted Towan to be.
There was a healthy mixture of excitement and nerves about what we knew was going to be a pretty tough year. We knew what we wanted to build but had no real idea what the first year would actually be like.
⭐ One year later:
There are now nine of us at Towan, with four vets sharing the work, a brilliant team providing all the support we need behind the scenes, and kit and vehicles that are definitely less shiny!
We have a growing client base that we genuinely could never have imagined a year ago, and our farm department is growing nicely. We have systems in place that work (mostly!) and we even have signs up outside (thanks to the Chuckle Brothers!) 😂
We’ve learnt a lot. We’ve had work experience students and vet students, worked together and with specialists on complicated cases. We’ve nursed several seriously ill patients through situations which, if we’d been somewhere else geographically, would almost certainly have meant referral and intensive care.
We’ve celebrated with our clients on some of their best days, and supported others through some of their very worst. And somewhere amongst the long days, late nights, learning, problem-solving and inevitable “we’ll have to work that out” moments, Towan has started to become the practice we hoped it would be.
There is still plenty to learn, plenty to improve and no doubt plenty more unexpected challenges ahead, but we’re so proud of where we are after one year.
🤝 But, we couldn’t have got here on our own!
A huge thank you to our families and friends — especially our kids and parents — for their patience, encouragement and all the practical help that has made this possible. Starting a practice has a habit of spilling over into family life, and we’re very lucky to have people around us who understand that.
Thank you too to XLVets, for the support and encouragement you give to independent practices like ours and for helping us build something that works for us.
But most of all, thank you to all of you ❤️
To our fantastic clients who took a chance on a brand-new practice, trusted us with your horses, ponies and farm animals, recommended us to your friends and supported Towan from the very beginning.
Your kind words, messages and feedback genuinely mean a huge amount to us. They’re a reminder, particularly on the difficult days, that the work we do really can make a difference.
Year 1 – Done!
Here’s to year two 🥳

07/09/2026

📣 A message from Emma, our new ATT!

"Hello everyone, I’m really excited to have joined the team here at Towan where I’ll be organising & delivering the TB testing.

Many of you will already know me, but for those who don’t, I’m looking forward to meeting you & getting out and about on farm! It’s lovely to be starting this new chapter and I can’t wait to see some familiar faces along the way."

24/08/2026

A few important updates from the practice this month, particularly around Bluetongue, vaccination and animal health funding.

Bluetongue – what we’re seeing on the ground and vaccine update
Of course it was only a matter of time, but it is still sad to say we've now confirmed the first case of Bluetongue on one of our client’s farms. Worth saying, we've also had a suspect case test negative, though are awaiting results from a number of other holdings. APHA Pirbright is the only lab in the country allowed to run the bloods and as you can imagine there is currently a fair old backlog which means turnaround has stretched to about two weeks. I’d be fairly confident in predicting that the single triangle on the map West of Truro is not likely to remain lonely for long.
The pattern for us so far has predominantly been lameness as the major cause for concern in cattle. Suspicious dairy cows have also presented with milk drop and high temperatures. My advice if you spot any suspect individuals or groups is exactly the same as before:
Ring APHA as soon as you see it on 03000 200 301. It's a notifiable disease so you need to report it directly to them. If they can't rule it out over the phone, they'll give us an authorisation code which covers the cost of the lab fees.
Early sampling helps everyone get a clearer picture of what's circulating locally. A fairly shrewd observation that was made to me on farm this week “If it isn’t Bluetongue we need to know so that we can find out what is going on.” There is a lot of it around but symptoms are vague and it could just as easily be something else that you want to get on top of sooner rather than later.
The good news is that we've now managed to source vaccine for every registered farm that asked us for it. In the end, a mix of UK product alongside Irish and Spanish branded versions. It's taken a fair bit of organising behind the scenes, but we're really pleased to have got the doses out the door and into animals.
For smaller holdings, 40 or 50 dose vials don't make sense, so we ran a split bottle day where we drew up individual doses for all our smaller farms to keep wastage and cost down. Credit where its due to local vet student Patrick, who put in a big shift to get all of these ready for you.

Animal Health and Welfare Review — claim the funding while you can.
A reminder that Animal Health and Welfare Review funding is still running, covering a fully funded vet visit for dairy, beef, and sheep farms provided you have at least 11 cattle or 21 sheep. We will have a chat with you before to decide what the subject of the visit should be and ensure you get value from it. This month I visited a dairy unit where we spent the visit going through coccidiosis management. Cattle visits also cover the cost of BVD testing, which is mandatory for anyone who is Red Tractor farm assured and highly recommended for everyone else. Often, there is money left over to reflect your own time on the day as well.
Current rates: dairy £447, beef £647 and sheep £574 for the initial review and there is follow up funding which we can discuss in more detail at the visit. All indications are that the scheme will close in June 2027 so it is worth getting applications in sooner rather than later.
It takes about 5 minutes to apply, but you'll need your Rural Payments CRN and password to hand.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/farmers-how-to-apply-for-funding-to-improve-animal-health-and-welfare

As suspected last month, parasites have been unpredictable to say the least. We’re seeing some very high faecal egg counts on mob samples as well as some clinically unwell animals.

Give us a call if you want to discuss any of the above or contact me directly [email protected]
All the best,
Zack

01/08/2026

ℹ️ Bluetongue Update – 1st August 2026

Yesterday we had our first suspected case of the season and DEFRAs Bluetongue year only started on the 1st July. Becky went out to examine the animal and took bloods to send off to APHA's lab at Pirbright for testing. Turnaround time on results is currently about two weeks which is going to feel like a long time, especially whilst we’re waiting to see how many other possible cases crop up.

On Tuesday evening I emailed a client to say that so far there had been 24 confirmed cases in the UK. This was a concern because last year we didn’t really see much until September and Cornwall ended up being the worst affected region of the country. Three days later that figure was 81 confirmed cases and what I’m hearing from East Cornwall and Devon is that there could be hundreds more samples being tested at present. The map attached to this post shows affected premises locations.

The midges that spread it are likely to be active until January now. It takes a couple of hard frosts to stop them which feels like a long way off.

In sheep keep an eye out for crusty or ulcerated muzzles, drooling, lameness and lethargy. In cattle milder clinical signs are being reported but they can get still get sore muzzles, mouth ulcers and milk drop. The major concern a lot of people have is reproductive whether that be abortions, stillbirths or calves born weak/deformed.

If you spot anything suspicious in your own stock, ring APHA as soon as you see it on 03000 200 301. It's a notifiable disease so you need to report it directly to them. If they can't rule it out over the phone, they'll give us an authorisation code which covers the cost of the lab fees when we visit to examine/treat the animal and take blood samples, like Becky did on Friday.

The best way to protect stock is to vaccinate them and I’d advise doing this sooner rather than later. The pharmaceutical companies have assured us there is plenty of stock in the country, but demand is very high at the minute which can cause delays in getting it out to practices.

Sheep require a single dose and cattle need 2 doses 3 weeks apart. The vials need using on the day they are opened but we will arrange a bottle sharing day if there is demand next week, please email me to add your name to the list - [email protected]

24/07/2026

Just like most of the livestock we’ve seen in the last month, July has been spent trying to find some shade to stand under. More than one case of heat stroke which is pretty unusual and reflects just how prolonged this hot spell has been.

Training Courses

A real highlight was running a sheep husbandry training session for staff and volunteers at The Cinnamon Trust. We covered a wide range of topics including handling, body condition scoring, foot care and early identification of common conditions. Great turnout and really insightful questions from people who clearly care a lot about the animals. It is always an interesting challenge putting together a bespoke course like this one.

Coccidiosis

On the calf health side, we had a group of weaned Spring born calves that weren’t gaining condition as expected and a minority were scouring. Dung sampling came back with a high coccidial oocyst count, and we treated the entire group with an oral drench.

This is worth flagging because coccidiosis doesn’t always make itself obvious with the classic clinical presentation of bloody mucousy diarrhoea. A study from Europe has shown infected calves can lose on average 129g a day in growth compared with uninfected calves. This is nearly 1kg a week even if they’re not scouring. Subclinical disease like this can cost UK herds up to £60 a calf, all without anyone necessarily noticing anything is wrong. For calves that aren't thriving, housed or at grass, it's often worth getting a dung sample checked before blanket treatment as a proper oocyst count is very informative. Interestingly, there are several cocci species and not all cause disease, so we’ll often get initial samples speciated to make sure a hight count isn’t a red herring.

TB Strategy

Bigger picture news this month as the independent group that reviews national bovine TB strategy has published its recommendations for the next phase of the official plan to eradicate the disease by 2038. A few highlights worth knowing about if you keep cattle:

A cattle TB vaccine now looks like it could be available by 2030, starting in high risk areas (like ours). The main challenge to this has been developing a new skin test that can differentiate infected from vaccinated animals (DIVA).

There's a proposal to start sharing herd level TB risk scores with farmers. APHA already calculates these each month internally but they aren’t made public. The idea would be that farmers could look up the risk profile of an animal they're buying.

Cattle that have an inconclusive test result then go clear on a retest are currently restricted to their holding for life and can only leave to go direct to slaughter. However, it is possible to remove this restriction by having a private (and pricey!) gamma blood test carried out. The recommendation is to remove the gamma clearance option, so the restriction becomes truly permanent. This is not unexpected as studies from the UK have shown that IRs are 7 to 12 times more likely to become full reactors later on than a normal TB negative animal.

Badger culling is a highly controversial topic, but still on track to cease by the end of this Parliament and the aim is for vaccination to replace this. Trial data has shown that vaccinated wild badgers were 76% less likely to test positive for TB than unvaccinated neighbours.

Next month’s topics likely to depend on the weather. Parasites at pasture will be unpredictable with this prolonged dry spell so likely to give an update on this. Let me know if there's anything you'd like covered. For registered clients The Monthly Routine will go out by email shortly with a bit more detail. Any queries, give the practice a call or email me directly [email protected]

All the best,

Zack

20/06/2026

The Monthly Routine #2 June 2026

Just like that nearly half the year has gone already. June has been a busy one and there is a lot to cover this month.

Royal Cornwall Show

We had vets on site from Tuesday morning through to Saturday, covering everything from early arrivals to the final departures. A brilliant Thursday and Friday, shame about the Saturday, but the right call given the conditions. It was great to see so many of you there, and congratulations to all our clients who exhibited and had some fantastic results from cattle to eggs!

As per last year, I was responsible for ultrasound scanning the udders of dairy cows that placed in their categories. For those who haven't come across it before the attached picture is an example of it being carried out. Cows at dairy shows are typically presented with their udders full and a longer milking interval usually makes for a more impressive udder. The problem is that this can cause fluid to build up in the udder tissue, which is uncomfortable for the cow and, beyond a certain point, a welfare concern. For fans of research papers there is a nice one published in the Journal of Dairy Science that shows milking intervals over 16 hours lead to a 9x increase in the risk of detectable udder oedema compared to cows milked at normal intervals. Ultrasound lets us assess this objectively and demonstrates how serious the Royal Cornwall Agricultural Association are about monitoring animal welfare at the show. I'm pleased to say all the cattle we scanned passed without any issues.

Worms

It is getting to the time of year when worm burdens at pasture start to increase. We have been making use of our Micron kit to carry out mob faecal egg counts (FECs) in house. We take a dung sample, process it, and count the parasite eggs. It tells us what's there, how much of it, and whether a worming treatment is required or has worked.

We see a lot of clear (ivermectin) pour on used routinely on adult cattle, but generally they have sufficient acquired immunity that this isn't necessary. However, youngstock in their first grazing season are a different matter. Significant worm burdens are common in this group and will affect growth rates even without obvious scouring. The classic protocol of worming at three, eight and thirteen weeks after turnout is still talked about, but on most farms it isn't required. My recommendation is to mob FEC every three to four weeks for youngstock groups from turnout until at least September. Many farms won’t require treatments until August and some won't need to treat at all during the summer.

At least partial ivermectin resistance is being reported on a significant proportion of farms across West Cornwall and every unnecessary treatment accelerates this process. A faecal egg count reduction test (FEC before treatment and again 10–14 days afterwards) tells us whether the product you're using is actually working.

The above is general advice and there are always exceptions, such as herds that suffer from lungworm and require specific plans to manage this. If in doubt, the safest bet is to contact us directly to discuss a worm control programme, especially for sheep where the resistance picture is even more serious. I’m also planning to discuss housing doses of wormer and flukicide as we get towards the Autumn.

Flies

A quick note for next year: we’ve now had some really interesting experience advising and supplying clients with a biological fly control called Biowasp. These are parasitic mini wasps that target fly pupae in bedding and dung. It's a clever system and early feedback has been positive so worth looking into ahead of next spring if fly pressure is a problem for you.

As always, registered clients keep an eye on your inboxes for The Monthly Routine in full. Any questions, call the practice or email [email protected].

All the best, Zack

06/06/2026

Before the weather turned and the heavens opened, we managed to capture our very own Siegfried, James and Tristan enjoying a rare moment of sunshine at the Royal Cornwall Show! ☀️🐄

It’s such a shame that the final day of this year’s show has been cancelled, but huge congratulations to all our clients who enjoyed success in the ring over the first two days. It has been fantastic to see so many familiar faces and watch your hard work being rewarded.

A big well done, too, to the Darrowby trio, who spent the show caring for a wide variety of animals and dealing with everything from routine checks to unexpected emergencies behind the scenes. Looking after an event the size of the Royal Cornwall Show is a significant undertaking—from the planning in the weeks beforehand through to being on call across five days and nights. A big shout out also to Becky, Jen and Emma, who kept everything running smoothly back at Towan HQ. It really is a true team effort from start to finish. Poor Becky finally made it up to the showground today, only to discover there wasn’t a great deal left for her to do! 😅

A special thank you to Emily Bissett from Torch Equine Vets (https://www.facebook.com/torchequinevets), who stepped in at the last minute to strengthen the vet team and support the additional biosecurity measures at the show. Your help was hugely appreciated.

If you were exhibiting, competing or simply enjoying the show, we’d love to see your photos too—share them in the comments below and let’s celebrate the best of this year’s Royal Cornwall Show together.

Until next year…

20/05/2026

✨ Royal Cornwall Show ✨

Aside from pre-arranged visits and appointments, during the week of the Royal Cornwall Show we’ll be focusing on urgent cases only.

We’re really proud to be the official vets at the show and are looking forward to seeing lots of of you there.

Please don’t worry though — while some of the team are up at the showground, others will be staying behind to make sure we’re still here for anything urgent back at home.