Cattle - Mandatory Animal Medical Treatment Records - VET and MED
Keeping accurate treatment records for your cattle is a mandatory requirement of all UK farmers under UK law and UK farm assurance and organic schemes.
Records are required to ensure animals are treated responcibly and minimise the risk to the consumer. Of all the mandatory records, treatment records, often refered to as 'vet and med' records are the most comprehensive.
FarmIT 3000 Animal Treatment Record
The FarmIT 3000 treatment record meets the legal requirement and farm assurance and organic requirements. It also makes it easy to record the reason for treatment, withdrawl periods, operator, number of animals etc.
Treatment Withdrawl Dates
The withdrawl date and withdrawl days define the period of time that the animal must stay on the farm prior to slaughter for human consumption, the animal may be sold during this period if the treatment data and withdrawl date is declared on the movement forms.
For dairy herds and animals milked the withdrawl date defines the period of time during which the milk should be discarded and NOT enter the human food chain.
The treament record clearly shows the withdrawl date and days in withdral. It also does this for organic farms as if the animal is out of conventional withdrawl it may be sold as non organic.
Treating individual, Groups, Untagged animals and sheep flock
When treating an individual animal it is normal to record the animals tag number, assuming that is that the animal is tagged, which may not apply to young lambs for example. However if you do tag your lambs for breeding performance, then recording the treatment with the animals tag is useful.
The treatment record may also be applied to multiple animals, a list of individual tag numbers. This tag list may come from a management group, list of tags from an EID reader or a weighing session.
Given cattle are normally tagged withing 28 days, cattle treatments are normal all recorded by the animals tag number. Sheep however specifically lambs may not be tagged until they leave the farm, so its is impossible to record the treatment against a individual tag number. These treatments may be recorded against the sheep flock record with a identifying make record to identify the animals, for example a blue spot!
Products, Antibiotics and Product Types
FarmIT 3000 allows you to also record the product purchase, delivery and disposal. Products are also available from a list (produced by Animal Health VET UK) which can make product entry easier. However with over 5000 products care needs to be taken to ensure you pick the right product.
Products are also catagorised into type, to identifide antibiotics etc. This is relatively new to treatments records in the last 3 - 4 years with more focus on minimalising antibiotic usage.
Product Purchase Records
Product purchase records are also part of the mandatory record keeping. Though you are not expected to account for every millilitre (ml) some corrolation between what you have purchased and what you have used is expected.
The product delivery record includes the quantity purchased, supplier and useby date. It also provides details on usage and approvals, farm applications, disposals and links to associated documents ( scanned images / pdf's or documents).
Product Disposal Records
You are also required to record product disposal and loss. However again accounting for every millilitre is impossible.
Animal Treatment History
The treatments given to an individual animal are visile on the animals main record card under the 'Medical Treatment' tab. This lists all treatments for the individual animal were the animals tag was specified, this include individual treatments and group treatments. It does not include any treatments applied to the flock where tag number were not specified.
Individual treatment history is also viewable on the FarmIT Mobile software and on FarmIT Online.
Reports and Analysis
FarmIT 3000 provides for all the mandatory reports, treatments, purchasing and disposal. It also provide analysis tool for problems and diseases, product usage and causes of death.
Product Usage Analysis
Analysing what you use on your farm is actually one of the more useful aspects of computerised record keeping over your basic book.
Analysing Animal Treatments - Problems and Diseases
Although the reason for treatment is actually not a legal requirement, it does provide useful on farm data. Why you treat an animal is probably more important than the batch number. It also means we can look at problems on the farm. Care should be taken to identify preventative treatment from reactive treatments. This information may well be useful to your VET in defining your farm health plan.
Animal Deaths
Animal on farm deaths are a factor of keeping livestock, although non of us keep livestock with the aim they should die on the farm. However deaths are part of the mandatory record keeping and include disposal and causes death etc
VET and Med On The Move - FarmIT Mobile
Of couse one of the biggest problems when treating animals is that you are normally outside in the field or shed. Recording the treatment is also not the priority in your head, saving the animal is normall higher. Of course we also need to acknowledge that majority of animal treatments are actually planned preventative treaments, for exmaple parasite control in sheep.
Recording planned bulk treatment is often simpler inside on you PC, directly into the FarmIT 3000 desktop software. This is also the case when your catching up, maybe from your diary. However FarmIT Mobile makes it possible to record those unplanned or reactive treatments on the spot, there and then at the point of treatment.
Cats and Dogs
It may seem strange to record cats and dogs, however recording worming of your farm cats and dogs is a requirement of many assurance schemes, so yes you can!