Because We Care

Health Plans

Here at the Banovallum Veterinary Group, we believe strongly that the most efficient and profitable use of veterinary services is through creating strategies for preventive medicine, and trying to minimise the need for the “fire-brigade” type service for which that vets are often used. This can be done on a piece-meal basis, one problem at a time, or via a whole-herd or whole-flock health plan, or something between the two – a plan is always tailored to the needs of the specific farm - and farmer.

What are health plans?

They are a method of looking at the diseases and problems that are present on your farm. A plan ensures that you target your time, effort and money at those problems that are most important to you, not at problems that are less significant.

This might involve looking at mastitis and cell count information for dairy farms, lambing or calving records, diets, etc or a combination of these and more. The important thing is to look at them, and concentrate your efforts.

What health plans are not: firstly, they are not an encyclopaedia of disease, nor simply a list of medicines to have on farm. But importantly, neither are they a piece of paper recording what you have done in the past, and which you wave at the farm assurance auditor – those so-called plans, a historical document, are not helpful for disease control. A true plan looks to the future, advising you what you should do to control a problem or disease, considering all the different factors that contribute to the disease and it’s control.

Therefore, they are a structured approach to looking at your most important problems, devising vet-advised policies for reducing those problems, and then, monitoring the response. If the policy for the reduction and control of a problem is working, then that strategy is continued; if it is not working, then the strategy is changed accordingly. But always, the advice is tailored to the individual farm.