New Dedicated Veterinary Blog ‘Under The Radar’ Aimed At Large Animal Vets

Vets can now take part in a dedicated veterinary blog called ‘Under The Radar’ and hosted by vetpol.co.uk. The blog features a panel of large animal clinicians, who are working in the field right now – Aurelie Moralis from Northern Ireland, Paddy Gordon of Shepton Veterinary Group and livestock nutrition expert Finbar Mulligan who works with the UCD Dairy Herd Health Group. The blog’s aim is to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and encourage large animal vets to discuss their experiences of sub-clinical disease in livestock. Sub-clinical disease is not a problem that farm vets usually go out on calls to – at least not knowingly anyway. Instead, it tends to initially go undetected, adversely affecting productivity and silently sapping farm profits. The perfect analogy – it tends to go ‘Under the Radar’. The blog represents an exciting new avenue for the profession to make more use of social media – it’s particularly novel in the field of production animal medicine and promises to raise awareness of an important topic. Subclinical diseases result in significant economic losses, as well as having welfare implications, yet vets sometimes find it difficult to engage farm clients’ interest. Sub-clinical ketosis, for instance, has proven links with an increased risk of metritis, mastitis, displaced abomasum and even lameness, affecting up to 30% of cows in the first 50 days of lactation but it’s not always easy to persuade farmers that there is an association between disease and the root cause.^1,2 The blog was set up to share best practice in detecting and treating subclinical disease and help vets swap tips on engaging interest and communicating the key points. Popular topics on the blog right now include applying body condition score data, how poor nutrition adversely affects pregnancy results and information about disease links. The panel welcome any comments, opinions and questions and invites vets to take part. Vets can read the blog by visiting http://www.vetpol.co.uk/blog.php?4505-Under-the-Radar and easily sign up to post comments. Suthar V, Canelas Raposo J, Deniz A, Heuwieser W (2012) Subclinical ketosis and relationships with post partum diseases in European dairy cows, Oral communication, XXVII World Buiatrics Congress 2012Macrae I A, Burrough E, Forrest J (2012) Prevalence of clinical and subclinical ketosis in UK dairy herds: 2006-2011, Oral communication, XXVII World Buiatrics Congress 2012

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