VetSouth

02/09/2025

Get in touch to book your disbudding with our experienced vet techs 📞

Our disbudding service involves sedating and locally anesthetising calves, before carefully and safely burning out calves' horn buds. We’ll often vaccinate sedated calves at the same time.

Removing the buds means they won’t grow sharp horns as an adult, helping prevent injuries to herdmates and handlers. It’s much easier on the animal getting them done young – between 2-6 weeks old is what we recommend.

Learn more about disbudding calves here ⬇️

Disbudding involves carefully burning out calves' horn buds. Removing the buds while they’re young means they won’t grow sharp horns as an adult, helping prevent injuries to herdmates and handlers.

02/09/2025

Have you got your metrichecking organised? Finding and treating any “dirty cows” that have infections after calving will help them get back in calf and improve their condition 🐄

Ideally all cows who are 10-14 days post-calving or over should be metrichecked, not just your high-risk girls 🎯

Aim for at least two whole herd metrichecks to cover the entire calving season.

Give us a bell to get booked in.

👉 Read more about getting repro ready here: https://www.vetsouth.co.nz/blog/post/134109/getting-repro-ready/

02/09/2025

This little piggy went to the vets... 🐷

When it was time for his visit with our team, Barry the pig walked himself over to the Winton clinic from his home and wandered straight through the front doors.

Vet nurse Jeni gave him a treat for being such a good boy. We certainly see all sorts in our clinics!

01/09/2025

Spring is here (and so is the rain, unfortunately). Vet Sunni has put together some thoughts about this time of year...

👉 It’s time for us vets to don our capes (or overalls), set cruise control in our trucks, and head to battle it out in the field – rain, hail or shine – trying to fix whatever problems spring throws at us. Always remember, we’re just a phone call or text message away to help you and your animals.

Read more from Sunni here:

We know you’ve got a lot going on during spring. Always remember: your KeyVet is just a phone call or text message away.

30/08/2025

Who else has a phone full of cute lamb photos at the moment? 😍🐑

28/08/2025

Every winter, when our dairy farmers have a little more time up their sleeve, we run our popular Winter Workshop Series. These workshops aim to help farm workers learn more about common spring topics and feel prepared for the season ahead 🐄📝

With sessions in both Winton and Gore this June/July, our vets shared their expertise on spring first aid and assisting a cow to calve, milking management and mastitis, preventing and treating lameness, and calf rearing. New this year, we also offered workshops looking at understanding your wearable cow tech pre-calving and ways to reduce Johne’s disease on your farm.

The vets included some great interactive elements to keep things interesting 👀🙌

A big thank you to all those who came along – hopefully the knowledge you gained will come in useful over the coming months, even if it’s just one little tip or trick that stuck in your mind!

26/08/2025

What a beaut day it was today! Long may this fine weather last ☀️

25/08/2025

Parasites affect all animals that graze grass. Unfortunately, in all species of stock, we are seeing parasites become resistant to drenches. Turning the ground over and burying them is one method to reduce parasite load 🚜🪱

👉 Read Vet Donna's article below to learn more about cultivation to manage parasites.

Parasites affect all animals that graze grass. In the past, drenching has been the only way to manage this – but in all species, we are seeing parasites become resistant to drenches. So, we need to consider other ways to manage parasites.

23/08/2025

It was lovely to see those of you who came into our Gore, Tapanui and Invercargill clinics over our lambing Spring Order Deals days at the start of this month! 🐑 🙌

Hopefully you took advantage of our deals on the things you need for lambing by placing product orders – and we hope you enjoyed the free food filling up your belly too.

It was particularly awesome to have some of our sheep vets from Winton visit the Invercargill clinic during their event to answer all your burning sheep-related questions 🤔

22/08/2025

Congratulations to Chandra and Manmaya Tamang who won the Livestock & Reproduction Award, sponsored by VetSouth, at the recent Canterbury Grasslands Annual Awards! The pair are contract milking on Grasslands South Coast Dairy – South, near Riverton. This hard-working pair and their team also won the title of Grasslands Farm of the Year 2024-2025 season 🥳🏆

21/08/2025

Have you signed up to our Complete Calf Care programme yet? 🐮

As every farmer knows, youngstock are your future – and this programme covers everything your calves might need in that critical first 12 months of their lives. It includes minerals, vaccines, drenches, and trace elements.

Get a plan in place with us and we can ensure that what your animals need is delivered to your farm when you need it, for no delivery cost 😮

Talk to our team today!