Game Birds
At Larkmead Vets we take a pro-active approach towards the rearing of game birds. We believe it is essential to focus on disease prevention rather than dealing with issues as and when they appear. We achieve this by undertaking routine farm visits (on request) at the beginning of the season where we will draw up a basic flock health plan to outline which farm specific areas we feel require close attention.
Contact our farm vets
Services we provide include:
Farm ‘walk and talk’
Our vets will talk you through areas of improvement for disease prevention.
Flock health plans
A flock health plan will identify farm specific disease prevention and treatment measures.
Signed prescriptions for in-feed medications
We are required by-law to visit the premises to which we are prescribing the medication. As there are limited veterinary medicinal products licensed for game bird use, we will sometimes have to use off-license products under the veterinary cascade. In these circumstances we will require signed consent from you accepting the situation and also the associated pro-longed withdrawal periods.
Post-mortem (PM) examinations
These are an invaluable tool in preventing high incidences of death in your flock. It is imperative to perform these as soon as you suspect illness in your birds. The best individuals to choose for PM are those which are ‘on their last legs’; ie: alive but showing typical signs of the disease you are concerned about. It is more reliable to perform 2 or 3 PM’s at a go. Dead birds are often of limited use as some of the disease-causing organisms will die or be overwhelmed by other bugs after death of the bird.
Faecal samples
These can be analysed to determine worm and coccidial burden.
If you would like to learn more about our game bird services, then please call our office on 01491 651479.
Healthcare Information
