Week 6 and counting….

Last weekend I attended the BCVA Annual Congress at Hinckley, Leicestershire, including the Annual Dinner where the outgoing President, Declan O’Rourke, handed the reins over to Gareth Hateley.  As a former “cowboy”, I was excited at the prospect of catching up with former colleagues and attending some of the scientific content to see how things have moved on.  However, I was out of my depth after only the first few slides!  How things have changed; what ever happened to a calving at midnight, followed by a caesarian at 2.30am, then a “calf bed out” at 5am and a milk fever at 6am then a routine fertility visit on your way home for breakfast…it’s all about herd health now over breakfast on the farm, so none of the above should ever happen!

In the middle of the week we held a BEVA CPD Course (http://www.beva.org.uk/news-and-events/beva-courses) at Three Counties Equine Hospital, organised by my wife, Luise, entitled “Out of Hours Equine Emergencies for Mixed Practitioners – NO MORE WILL YOU DREAD THE 3 AM CALL….”.  The speakers were Luise, David Sinclair from Bell Equine Clinic, Neil Frame from Frame, Swift and Partners in Penrith and myself.  I’ve known Neil for several years having been co-examiners for CertEP and I think that he is the ultimate omni-competent vet that would be able to do bitch caesarian, a cow caesarian and anaesthetise a surgical colic all on the same night on-call – how many of the rest of us could claim that ability…with competence.  Preparation for and participation in the course was a lot of hard work but was also immensely rewarding and educational.  I think it’s really interesting and enlightening to hear how others deal with the different scenarios, which we’re all used to and how to cater and even improvise when faced with different client budgets and expectations.  I actually think that it would be a good course for Equine Only vets to attend.  I haven’t dared broach the subject with the organiser of running the course again next year; she’s still recovering from this year’s.

During the morning lectures I was able to squeeze in a radio interview with Lucy Bickerton from Farming Today (it’s the only time she could do!) to discuss one of the other issues, which I raised at the BBC RAC meeting described in last week’s blog, notably the ongoing problem of Anthelmintic Resistance.  I brought it up to raise horse-owner and the general public awareness of the issue and encourage more responsible use of anthelmintics, including, amongst other things, worm-egg counts, cross species grazing and muck-picking.  I think it’s due to be broadcast mid-week - http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/farming.