What’s is an Animal Health Plan (AHP)?
- Animal Health Plan’s record the activities you do or want to do over a season with your stock
- They are becoming a requirement of Milk Processing companies to complete. In the case of Fonterra for example they are looking for information on your farm performance, goals and actions in 5 key areas
- Alongside this Anexa Vets have a full season plan where together we can record all relevant animal health activities for your cows, heifers or calves, in as much detail as you need
- At the same time it’s an opportunity to discuss the merits of any new animal health options (e.g. – could your drying off process be easier and more effective if you did a whole herd individual body condition score in Autumn?) and of existing ones (e.g. is drenching your calves every 3-4 weeks still the most cost effective option)
Why do an Animal Health Plan?
- The key reason is they allow planning of activities throughout the season
- This allows a “memory jogger” for yourselves and all farm staff
- These activities can then be costed for budgeting purposes
- Dairy companies are looking to make these a requirement
What do you need to do?
- Simply call your vet and they will arrange a list of information required from you to do the AHP well – e.g. for Fonterra there is information required for their part of the process – it’s usually all in the dairy diary
- Make a time to visit, discuss the options and enter the plan
