A Recap of Our ‘Mastering Medicines’ Course

Empowering Farms Through Knowledge

At Shepton Vets, we’re committed to not only providing exceptional veterinary care but also empowering our farming community with knowledge and skills. Our recent ‘Mastering Medicines’ course is a testament to this dedication. This course, which aligns with Red Tractor requirements for medicines training, equips delegates with vital insights into responsible medicine use, ultimately enhancing animal health, welfare, and production standards. Lottie delved into the highlights of this enlightening day.

Last week we ran our mastering medicines course for 6 delegates from dairy, sheep and beef farms. Mastering Medicines is a course that fulfils the Red Tractor requirements for medicines training and for some delegates this may be the only reason that they have enrolled. In view of this, it is always rewarding to see delegates going home not only with a better understanding of the medicines that they are using every day, but also some really good practical ways to improve the way in which they use medicines on farm to maintain good health, welfare and production standards but also save money in the process.

 

We start the course by discussing vaccines, antibiotics, NSAIDs and anthelmintics – which ones we use on farm and what we use them for as well as delving a bit deeper into how they work. The second part of the course looks at the responsible use of medicines; how we can replace, reduce and refine our use of antibiotics and anthelmintics. We also look at the practical aspects of how we can get the most out of all the medicines that we use and how health planning can help with this. Finally we spend the last portion of the course discussing how withdrawal periods are set, how they can be affected by changes in the way that medicines are used and how this fits into the legislation that surrounds medicine usage.

It was a very successful day with all the delegates going home with much more confidence in their knowledge of the medicines they use and how to get the best out of them as well as some new ways to tackle diseases on farm.

Lottie Meire