Option 1 - Animal health and welfare management programme
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The aim of this option is to promote animal health and welfare standards and contribute to farm business profitability and product quality.We will provide grant support towards the cost of implementing an Animal Health and Welfare Management Programme which will reflect your own particular farm management structure.
This is a five year commitment. In each year you can claim the standard cost, as shown below, of implementing agreed actions to raise animal health and welfare standards.
What activities are supported?
Those individual businesses with a minimum of four livestock units (as entered on the Single Application Form (SAF)) will be eligible to apply to carry out all the options ( Information on livestock units). Pigs and poultry are currently excluded from participation of the scheme.
You will have discussions with your vet, drawing on the suggested template set out in the ' Veterinary Discussion Template' pages, and develop an animal health and welfare management programme for your use in actively managing animal health and welfare issues. From this assessment you will agree, with your vet, an action programme with specific actions that you must undertake. You will take many of these actions yourself.However, for some of the tasks involved you will require to buy in specific services. As part of this assessment you will be required to sign a declaration confirming that you will keep at least four livestock units at all times for the next five years. The programme's production needs to be completed by 1 December with the actions within the programme completed by theend of the LMC scheme year.
If you choose this option, you must take the actions explained at 1 below. Actions 2 to 4 are voluntary and you can get funding for each year you take the actions. Action 5 is also voluntary and you can only take it once in the five years the option runs for.
Actions that can be Undertaken
- Animal Health and Welfare Programme.
- Undertake additional inspection and monitoring and implement an action plan to measure performance.
- Produce an action plan to ensure the safe integration of new stock on farm.
- Undertake sampling to identify diseases/conditions, which may be present on farm.
- Analyse forages and obtain professional nutritional advice and implement advice from report.
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1. Animal Health and Welfare Programme
Payment rate: standard cost £220
As part of your assessment there are two compulsory actions.You must agree to implement each of these actions, which must be reviewed with your vet on an annual basis.
- Implement a proactive scheme for treating diseases, including guidance on following a vet's advice and treatment.
Your scheme will detail the agreed first and second lines of treatment, individual dosage instructions and the withdrawal periods for each treatment. - Implement a scheme for using vaccines and preventative medicines.
You will detail the vaccines or preventative medicines you will use, and individual dosage instructions and withdrawal periods for each vaccine or preventative medicine.
The additional actions 2 to 4 are voluntary and will attract funding on an annual basis. Action 5 can at present only be implemented once within the five years of the plan.They will help to meet some of the actions which will be identified in the basic plan. Not all of these will be applicable to your farm business and will be selected as a consequence of your animal health and welfare assessment.
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2. Undertake additional inspection and monitoring to collate performance indicators, analyse all significant animal health and welfare related observations arising from inspections and implement an action plan to measure performance.
Payment rate: standard cost £320
You will record performance indicators and disease symptoms which are pre-determined objective measures. You and your vet will make comparisons between your enterprise and others in the same veterinary practice area, county or across Scotland. For example, this will allow you to compare the incidence of lameness, relative to similar farm types.
For 2005/2006 you will only be required to collect information on performance indicators and disease syndromes. However, in future years your vet will need to enter this information into a central database. We are currently working with stakeholders to develop and pilot this.
The indicators will cover a broad range of production measures and disease syndromes. Analysis of these will feed back into your Animal Health and Welfare Management programme and will help you to make decisions relating to farm management. The applicability of the indicators will vary between sectors and include, for example:
Cattle
Production measures
- Total number of cattle in the herd
- Number of cows and heifers mated
- Number of assisted calvings including caesareans
- Number of calves/young stock sold or retained
Disease syndromes
- Number of cases of lameness which required treatment
- Number of cases of pneumonia (other than lungworm) which required treatment and which died
- Number of cases of suspected or confirmed lungworm
- Number of cases of mastitis which required treatment and which were culled or died
Sheep
Production measures
- Number of ewes mated
- Number of lambs weaned
- Number of barren ewes
- Number of abortions
Disease syndromes
- Number of cases of pneumonia which required treatment
- Number of cases of skin infestation requiring treatment
More detailed guidance on the indicators will be provided as part of the production of your animal health and welfare programme which is to be completed by 1 December. The following link contains blank forms to record the benchmarking data.
You will discuss with your vet the analysis of the data collected and how it could play a part in preventing the herd or flock from achieving its potential and agree an action plan to address the problems identified.
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3. Produce an action plan to ensure the safe integration of new stock on farm and minimise the risk of spreading disease by maintaining fences around isolation areas to enhance biosecurity levels and to prevent diseases from entering the herd/flock.
Payment rate:
standard cost £30 payable once in the five year period
standard cost £0.10 per running metre (up to a maximum of 3000 metres)
You will write, and then follow, an action plan which identifies the field identification number (FID) of the area of fencing that you are going to maintain. The area may consist of boundary and internal fencing and must be currently used and remain in use as an isolation facility.
Maintaining the fencing you will:
- inspect the fencing;
- tighten slack wiring;
- reattach loose wiring;
- replace damaged fence posts and/or sections.
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4. On the advice of the veterinary surgeon to undertake sampling to identify diseases/conditions such as twin lamb disease or copper deficiency, which may be present on farm having a negative impact on animal health and welfare and take informed control measures to address conditions.
Payment rate: standard cost £155
You will arrange for sampling, for example blood testing, to be undertaken by your vet, to establish the disease status of your herd and/or flock. You will pay separately for the laboratory analysis of the samples.You will discuss the analysis with your vet and undertake agreed control measures in line with your overall animal health and welfare assessment.
It is likely that the sampling will be carried out by your vet at the same time as statutory testing. The veterinary time for this measure must be identified separately from veterinary statutory testing time.
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5. Analyse forages and obtain professional nutritional advice and implement advice from report.
Payment rate: standard cost £110
Forage is defined as bulk feeding stuff, such as silage or hay. Forage samples will be sent for laboratory analysis and you will discuss results with a professional nutritionist, implementing advice from the report. At present you may only claim support for this measure once within the five year period.
How do I get started?
Check with your area office that your vet is suitably accredited. Let your vet know that you intend to use grants to support an animal health and welfare management programme and arrange a suitable time to discuss this. Your vet will visit you to carry out an assessment, gather information (see Veterinary Discussion Template) and discuss possible actions. The information that is discussed will remain between you and your vet. The information will not be passed to SEERAD although we will need to see a copy of the assessment and programme if we inspect your farm. (See section 4).
Evidence
You must send us a completed claim form showing the actions that you have taken.You must do this by 31 March 2006. With your claim you must send a signed declaration from your vet confirming that you have considered recommendations from any specialist reports you received. Specific details of your actions will already have been set out as part of your animal health and welfare programme.
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