Bitesize webinars programme

Date: 24 September 2025
Time: 7pm

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Description: Infectious Keratoconjunctivitis in sheep flocks can be a frustrating and challenging condition for farmers and vets alike. We will discuss the differentials and diagnostic testing options, as well as discuss trends in SRUC submissions in the context of some of the published articles on the topic.

About the speaker: Fiona Crowden graduated from Edinburgh University in 2004 and worked in mixed practice in Caithness and Angus before joining SRUC Veterinary Services in Aberdeen in 2019, initially keeping a foot in practice, and joining SRUC full time in 2021. She gained the RCVS CertAVP in 2022 and has a particular interest in sheep health and production.

Animal health planning is a continuous process to improve animal health, welfare, and productivity, ideally done with a vet. Often misunderstood, farmers see it as a box-ticking exercise for farm assurance schemes, and vets do it only upon request, finding it stressful and hard to justify charges.

Health planning should be a valuable tool for vets to help clients achieve goals and generate income. Both farmers and vets need to recognise its value and monetise this service. Vets should highlight the cost-benefit to clients, understanding their objectives, livestock, product values, business costs, and major expenses.

Molly McKay from Norfolk farm vets and Foteini Manolaraki from SRUC Vet Services will give practical advice to vets on how they can i. help their clients to achieve their goals and maximise revenue, ii. generate income with minimal cost for their practices and iii. use web-based tools and services to support proactive flock and herd health planning.

About the speakers: Molly McKay graduated from RVC in 2001 having previously completed a degree at the University of Surrey in Economics. Molly always work in farm practice and have always greatly enjoyed being an integral part of the farm ream from clinical work to financial planning. She owns a small ruminant-only practice in Lincolnshire.

Foteini Manolaraki graduated from the Vet School of Thessaloniki in 2005. She then moved to France to pursue her Master’s, PhD, and post-doctorate studies at the National Research Institute (INRA) and the Veterinary School of Toulouse (ENVT). In 2014, Foteini joined SRUC Vet Services as the Animal Health Planning Development Manager. She manages the Biosecurity, Animal Health, and Welfare Management Programme funded by the Scottish Government, focusing on developing tools to help farmers and vets engage in proactive health planning. Foteini leads HerdPlan, and manages SRUC’s Vet Services CPD courses and EMS programmes. She also participates in teaching activities.

(Original date: 27 November 2024)

Many vets are frustrated that farmers fail to adopt their recommendations and advice, not least when there are direct consequences for animal health and welfare. Dr Kate Lamont, a Behavioural Scientist at SRUC, aims to help vets by presenting a different perspective on how to approach farmers, provide advice to them, and ultimately to promote behaviour change for the benefit of livestock.

About the speaker: Kate Lamont is a social scientist with research interests in biosecurity, One Welfare, and the mental health and wellbeing of livestock farmers and their vets. Having hailed originally from the Highlands of Scotland, she is interested more widely in the sustainability of rural and agricultural communities.

JP Crilly graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2010. After some charity work in North Africa he worked in mixed practice in Thurso, before undertaking a 3 year residency at the R(D)SVS, University of Edinburgh. Since then he has worked mainly in first-opinion farm animal practice in the south of England. He became a member of the European College of Small Ruminant Health Management in 2016.

(original event date: 28 May 2024)

This practical webinar with speaker Lorna Shaw discussed nutrition in ewes pre-lambing, looking at feeding systems and assessing the adequacy of nutrition on farm. This included troubleshooting common nutritional issues and how to identify areas for improvement.

(Original date: 31 January 2024)

The investigation, diagnosis and control of Q fever to protect animal and human health does present vets and farmers with some challenges. This webinar set out to present some of practical points about this disease for vets to consider with their clients.

Speaker: Colin Mason Colin Mason, Veterinary Centre Manager at the SRUC Disease Surveillance Centre (DSC) in Dumfries.  After qualifying he spent 5 years in farm animal practice in Cheshire before joining SAC in 2000.  He obtained the RCVS Certificate in Cattle Health and Production in 1999. 

(Original date: 29 November, 2023)

This practical webinar discussed nutrition in suckler cows pre-calving, looking at feeding systems and assessing the adequacy of nutrition on farm. This will include troubleshooting common nutritional issues and how to identify areas for improvement.

This was the final webinar in this series for vets that has explored ways of making beef and sheep health plans more effective in practice. We heard from the three farm animal vets who have tested dynamic health planning with their clients over the last year, including rounding off their clients' year and discussing the benefits and challenges of using dynamic health planning in practice.

(Original date: 12 October 2023)

The rise of backyard poultry keeping and farm/estate diversification into small-scale gamebird shoots are two contributors to the growing presentation of avian cases to mixed and farm animal vets. In addition, the increased prevalence of avian influenza means that diagnostic investigations in poultry and game birds can be challenging. Join Alex Schock and Caroline Robinson to go "beyond the flu": Alex spoke about her experience as an avian pathologist at APHA Lasswade, concentrating on diagnosing common diseases in chickens, turkeys, waterfowl and game birds from small flocks, including when to call APHA to notify a potential notifiable disease outbreak. Caroline presented examples of recent cases investigated through the SRUC's network of postmortem examination facilities in Scotland.

(Original date: 11 October 2023)

Scotland continues to enjoy Official TB Free Status and the benefits that that brings to the cattle industry. However, this does not mean that TB is not present in the cattle population and it remains an ever present potential biosecurity threat. We were delighted to have three expert speakers discuss TB in a Scottish context over the course of two webinars. Firstly Mick Park and Iain Bell from APHA who described trends, actions on confirmed cases and new opportunities for investigating the source and Sarah Tomlinson who is the TB Advisory Service Technical Director, veterinary lead and a key member of BCVA’s TB working group, who gave us an overview of an holistic approach to bovine TB.

(Original dates: 20 & 27 September, 2023)

Milk drop in dairy herds is complicated! It is truly multifactorial with causes including infectious disease, nutrition, management or a combination of all three. With the advance of increased technology on dairy farms there is also an abundance of data to draw on. From a disease surveillance perspective it is also of interest as a potential way in which a new and emerging disease may start in a herd. This webinar discussed how to approach an investigation in a cost effective way, considered some of the common and more exotic differential diagnoses relevant to individual herds and tried to help navigate the complexities of what might be going on on farm.

(original date: 6 September 2023)

This was the third in a series of webinars for vets that explored ways of making beef and sheep health plans more effective in practice.

Participants join us to catch up with Ed, Ali and Lee-Anne as they reported back on their clients' herds and flocks after the lambing / calving period and looked forward to managing health risks over summer.

In addition to the large dairy beef rearing companies, we have seen an increase in farms taking on small numbers of dairy beef calves to rear as a sideline to other farming enterprises, outside the traditional dairying areas. This webinar aimed to highlight the important nutritional and health planning considerations for these rearing systems up to and around weaning. The management and prevention of common problem scenarios was also discussed.

(Original date: 19 April, 2023)