Donview Vets Farm & Equine

🐑🚫 Let’s Talk Sheep Worrying

Even the friendliest family dog can cause stress to sheep simply by being loose around them. Sadly, this can lead to injuries, lost lambs, or long‑lasting health problems for the flock.

✅ Keep dogs on a lead anywhere near livestock
✅ Stick to marked footpaths
✅ Never let dogs run ahead where you can’t see them
✅ If your dog has strong chase instincts, consider avoiding livestock areas altogether
✅ Report any livestock injuries or loose dogs to the landowner or local authorities

Our farmers work incredibly hard year‑round to care for their animals; a little awareness goes a long way. 💛

Dummy Calves

If a newborn calf appears healthy but won't stand or suckle, it may be suffering from "dummy calf" syndrome (Neonatal Maladjustment Syndrome).

There’s evidence to suggest that an increase in dummy calves is due to historic Bluetongue infection. They may well be isolated cases, but it’s important to record them and contact your vet if there seems to be more than normal. In particular:

🐮 Abortions and stillbirths
🐮 Small, stunted calves
🐮 Poor sucking calves
🐮 Calves with apparent brain deficits such as blindness or malcoordination
🐮 Death of calves within days of birth

We’re one month into Spring Farm Bingo 👀

How many have you ticked off so far?

🐑🐮

March Farm & Equine Blog

The farm animal work continues to be busy, especially with caesareans and prolapses (both sheep and cows) still in full force. However, the lighter evenings and drier weather makes a welcome change. One success story from this month is Marigold the sheep. In December, unfortunately Marigold was attacked by crows, which heavily damaged her right eye. At the time she was in lamb, so conservative treatment was taken. Thankfully, she had her lamb, which is doing well, and therefore, we opted to remove her eye, as it was non-viable and would have been prone to infections or flies. With Fiona as my anaesthetist, I successfully removed her eye, and she continues to thrive.

On our equine side there has been some interesting cases. One such case is a 1y warmblood with severe diarrhoea. Medical management seemed to provide a mild improvement but ultimately didn’t resolve his issues. Therefore, after seeking further advice, my colleagues opted to perform a transfaunation on him. This involved administering healthy faecal matter from a donor via a nasogastric tube. This has made a significant difference, and he is now much better.

With lambing comes castrations and tail docking, and there has not only been recent discussion regarding this, but a government lead drive to improve this. One product that seems to have taken off is the clipfitter. Several of our farmers have been using it for a few years, and Charlie (the vet) has started using it this year. Below is a graph, showing the different methods and the associated pain. Anecdotally, it seems to be a great improvement, with no long-lasting pain/discomfort. This fits with the evidence, as seen in the graph.

From the 1st of Feb the legislation regarding BVD testing changed. Firstly, any calf born to a heifer or cow that was moved onto your holding while pregnant MUST be tested for BVD virus/antigen before it is 40 days old OR before it leaves the holding (whichever happens first). This is regardless of your intent for the cow. Tissue tagging soon after birth is the cheapest way to test this. Calves cannot be moved off farm until confirmed negative. These new rules are in addition to the standard BVD testing legislation, not in replacement of.

Thanks Kyle

It's time for Phase 2 of the Equine Project Worms initiative!

We are looking for any equine yard owners or managers to share their experience of managing parasites, on both livery and competition yards. Worm resistance is a common threat we are all facing, and we know that yard managers play an essential role in controlling worm populations and dewormer resistance.

We are asking you to complete a short survey to help further our understanding ok management systems used in the UK. It is quick, anonymous and there is a chance to win £100 vouchers for Love2Shop. The survey can be found on surveymonkey.com/r/wormslivery or via the QR code on the poster below.

Help us to protect your horses' health!

🐎🐛💩

🏆 SPRING SHOW 2026 WINNERS 🏆

We've had a busy spell so delayed announcing the winners (yes, winners!) of our 'Guess how many blood tubes are in the jar' competition.

The total number of tubes was 47!

Congratulations to Addie Pickard and Lewis Anderson on guessing the correct number of blood tubes!

🏆🤩🐮🐑🐴🏆

February Farm & Equine blog

A late addition to the monthly blog – we shall blame the madness of Spring time!

Over February we have had a big upswing in farm animal calls, especially calvings. There have been some very challenging caesarean sections over the past few weeks, from down cows, to twisted calves and uterine ruptures, but thankfully we have had some miraculous survival stories in the mix, despite the difficulties. I am so grateful for the team we have here at Donview, as there is always a helping hand available for these more difficult cases, where 2 vets are often better than 1!

We had a great day at the Spring Show at Thainstone on the 25th. A big thank you to Sarah for organising a great display table, and we had lots of entertainment with our “Guess what’s in the box” addition this year. It’s always nice to chat to our existing clients at these events, but great to see some new faces interested in meeting the team and hearing about what we do as well.

The equine side of things has been a bit quieter this month, but we have had a few guttural pouch washes and scopes, and a few sets of Xrays for early laminitis cases. With the grass starting to grow again, the laminitis risk is increasing so a friendly reminder to keep an eye on our EMS prone steeds. If you have any concerns regarding this, feel free to give us a call to chat to one of our vets about the best approach to managing this condition.

Finally, we are in the process of setting up a new information sharing group – The Donview Farm Hub. We will have a separate group for sheep and cattle, and the method of distribution (email, WhatsApp, newsletter etc) is still to be determined. This group will include short informative messages throughout the year dealing with the seasonal challenges to each farm species. For example – Nematodirus in lambs in spring, or Pneumonia is cattle at housing. We will share a brief explanation of the disease or challenge, what to look out for and how best to treat/manage/prevent these issues. Our aim is to simply inform farmers about issues we are seeing at different times of the year, and how they can best manage this on their own farm. If you are interested in being part of this Hub, please register your interest with Sarah!

Outside of work I have been taking advantage of the appearance of the sun with a few nice walks locally – Kirkhill and Bennachie being my favourite two. I have also been treating my own horse, Prim, for some persistent mud fever as well as gastric ulcers, never a dull moment being your own vet! Thankfully she is on the mend again and I am hoping to get out competing on the weekends again once spring calms down, and when she isn’t playing Cinderella!

Thank you,

Deanna

Laminitis in horses 🍀🌿

With lush spring grass returning, horses can be at higher risk of laminitis. Even horses that look healthy can be affected. Early prevention is key: manage grazing, monitor your horse’s weight and speak to your vet about tailored plans to help keep them safe.

Concerned about laminitis? Contact us for advice.