Leahurst Farm Animal Practice

10/04/2025

This little guy would certainly go home with the prize of cutest patient of the week! 🐐

It's very important to get an accurate weight on an animal before administering medicines to prevent under or overdosing. These pygmy kids needed some anti-worming treatment, and a luggage scale plus a shopping bag did the trick!

03/04/2025

Uterine torsion 🥨

On a rare occasion right before calving the uterus can twist, which causes the cervix to constrict and physically prevents the cow from calving. Quite often the cow doesn't show many signs of labour, but once diagnosed you have to act quickly

Our vet Kate made use of the GYN stick last week to manipulate the calf round to correct the torsion. After that the calf was in a good position and was born with some assurance (and some post op TLC from a very broody farm dog!)

Other options to correct a torsion is to cast and roll the cow, or to do a cesarian section

02/04/2025

30/03/2025

Mastitis in pigs

Mastitis (infection of the under) can occur in sows after farrowing, and can present as a sudden fever, inappetent, and her teats may feel firm and hot to the touch

This sow developed a severe mastitis after giving birth to a litter of 14 (!) piglets and became very poorly

Our vet Niall did a great job of putting in an intravenous drip into her ear vein (this can be quite challenging in pigs) to provide fluid therapy. This alongside antibiotics, painkillers, and some TLC meant that she has made a good recovery and managed to continue to feed her litter

The first pic is her 24 hours after she first developed the infection, and the second pic shows her 2 weeks later, having a rest with her happy growing babies 🐖

27/03/2025

..and here we have the tooth extraction!

Sam from Apex Equine Dental Surgery Ltd was assisted by the farm practice vets to sedate Rangor and remove the tooth to clear the tooth root abscess

Rangor is now at home and recovering well from the procedure, and will hopefully continue to be free of tooth ache

Thank you to Alpacaly ever after for allowing us to share this case

26/03/2025

📚📖 Did you know the vets at Leahurst Farm Animal Practice are actively involved in Research.

🐄 This article has just been published in the Journal of dairy science

🥛Using a dip and paper towel prior to milking gave better milking performance compared to wipe only.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether the use of an iodine-based predip solution and paper towel (DP routine) reduces the incidence of delayed milk ejection and the recorded vacuum at the teat end, compared with a proprietary teat wipe (WP routine), when forestripping is not part of the t...

25/03/2025

Meet Rangor!

He is a 10 year old llama belong to Alpacaly ever after that was referred to us from Millcroft Veterinary Group for lump over his left side jaw.

X-rays show a tooth root abscess, and so removal under sedation was recommended. Stay tuned for pictures of the procedure!

22/03/2025

"do you mind? I'm trying to have a bath!"

13/03/2025

Big thank you to Chester Yfc Club for getting stuck in last night at our workshop events

The group had a go with our lambing and calving simulators as well as a campus tour

21/02/2025

The combination of baby goats and cute jumpers means we can't resist a photoshoot!

18/02/2025

Silage eye in cattle

'silage eye', also known as bovine iritis, is thought to be caused by a reaction to the bacteria listeria monocytogenes 🦠 that can grow in silage (pickled crops that are fed over the winter months) when it hasn't fermented enough
It can cause eye pain and inflammation of the iris, and is commonly treated by an injection of a corticosteroid underneath the eyelid with an antibiotic to treat any secondary bacterial infection.

This very handsome Red Poll breeding bull called Ernie got a case of silage eye this February and thankfully made a full recovery after veterinary treatment (he tolerated this very well, which is helpful with a patient this size!) 🐮

16/02/2025

⚠️ Avian Influenza Update

🐓 A mandatory housing order is now in place for all birds in Cheshire and Merseyside.

Please contact us if you need any advice on how to comply.

15/02/2025

Sand impaction case in an alpaca

This very handsome male alpaca called Pablo (plus his friend Sergio for some company) visited us at the start of the year after having a few episodes of colic a few weeks prior 🦙

Further investigation which included ultrasound, X-rays, and bloodwork revealed that the most likely cause of his upset tummy was sand impaction

Sand impaction colic can occur when an animal eats small volumes of sand which over time can accumulate in the guts, which can cause discomfort and abnormal bowel movements, and in serious cases can cause a blockage 🚧

Pablo was treated with fluid therapy, pain relief, and physilium husks to help shift the sand - he is now doing very well at home and has hopefully lost his appetite for nibbling bits of sand! ⏳

Thank you to the team at Wright & Morten Farm Vets for this interesting referral

14/02/2025

📌🚨 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗰𝘂𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 🚨📌

A classroom day for some of the Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service team last Friday as part of their regular animal handling refresher courses which we run at the School of Veterinary Science. 🧯🚒

The course was lead by our fabulous colic surgeon and head of research Professor Debbie Archer 👩‍⚕️

Fire and rescue teams commonly have to deal with large animal rescue situations – mainly involving horses but not uncommonly they have to deal with farm animals too. This is only one part of the vital job they perform and not all FRS will have handled large animal species. Knowing how to approach and handle them safely is important to keep everyone safe and is important for the animals themselves. ❤💜💚

Our teaching horses (Angel and Thunder) 🐴, cattle 🐮, sheep 🐑 and pigs 🐖 enjoyed having some visitors who were not veterinary students, for a change.

It is not uncommon that our equine and farm animal veterinary teams are called to help with large animal rescue situations and as vets, we also undergo training with fire and rescue personnel to ensure that we all work together in a calm and safe manner. 😇

Thank you for the great work that our Fire and Rescue service personnel perform – we always enjoy having your crews here and we hope you also enjoyed your day. 😍

14/02/2025

Bursitis in cattle 🐄

This heifer presented as lame and with a swelling close to her right stifle joint

Ultrasounography revealed a pocket of fluid containing fibrin, and through draining the fluid to release the pressure and analysing the cells found in the fluid we could diagnose this calf with bursitis. You can see a flap of fibrin here on the ultrasound image 💉Here we have our vet Rosana scanning the knee

Bursitis is defined as inflammation of the bursa, which is a fluid-filled sac between the bones and tendons/muscles. It most frequently occurs in areas of friction or pressure, such as the elbow, knee, or shoulder 🦵

Treatment involves anti inflammatory medication, and in some cases drainage of the bursa if it becomes infected or severely swollen