Mobility Services

We all know lameness has a significant impact on welfare and productivity. At Shepton vets we understand that tackling this requires a holistic approach. Our team of dedicated vets and vet techs are here to support you with this. This team approach enables us to deliver an integrated approach to lameness management and achieve results.

Key Team Members

Dedicated vets and vet techs lead our mobility services. Our team have with extra qualifications, training, and a passion for progressing herd mobility through evidence-based solutions.

Rosie is an AHDB Mobility Mentor, and she delivers our practice Healthy Feet Scheme. This monthly scheme is a structured approach to dairy herd lameness control that provides ongoing support and commitment as we work towards improving herd mobility. Mobility mentors can deliver the AHDB Dairy Healthy Feet Programme (HFP) (Healthy Feet | AHDB).

Anna and Ray are our RoMS accredited mobility scorers.

Sheptons healthy feet scheme

The Healthy Feet Scheme is a structured approach to improve your dairy herd’s mobility. Our resident AHDB mobility mentor, Rosie, leads this programme, supported by our ROMs accredited mobility scorers The Healthy Feet Scheme is a structured approach to improve your dairy herd’s mobility.

Included in the scheme:

An on-farm risk assessment: Exploring the environmental and management practices which impact on mobility on your farm.
An on-farm skills check: Supporting your team with early detection of lameness and effective trimming.
Creating an action plan agreed by the whole team, prioritising those changes which will be the most beneficial.
Ongoing support and monitoring of your herd’s mobility progress.
Farmer mobility action group participation.
20% discount on foot trimming courses run at Shepton.
20% off Shepton delivered RoMS accredited mobility scoring

We understand that success in improving lameness takes time. Therefore, we have developed a monthly scheme to ensure continued support for the first year and beyond.

1st 3 months free with AHWP funding, to find out more give the team a call or email farm.animal@sheptonvets.com

Mobility scoring with Shepton Vet Tech Team

Ray Creed and Anna Hewison are Shepton’s RoMS accredited mobility scorers. Our aim is to score your herd accurately and consistently with minimal disruption to the cows.

Mobility scoring has been shown to reduce levels of lameness even when no other management changes are made. Following a herd mobility score, farmers will be left with a treatment list. A report will follow, highlighting herd mobility trends and tracking cows that have been repeatedly lame. We aim to make mobility scoring more than just a paperwork exercise to satisfy your milk buyer.

Shepton Vets offer a foot trimming service. We have a Wopa crush that we take out to farms to trim groups of lame cows. Several of our team like the challenge of being presented with score 3 cows from a mobility score to assess and treat.

We are affiliated with a professional foot trimmer – Neil Bishop, KNEL Livestock. Neil works closely with Shepton Vets offering a quality foot trimming service for those needing larger groups of cows trimmed regularly.

Body Condition Scoring (BCS) can be carried out at the same time as mobility scoring.

Foot trimming training courses, bespoke on-farm training, and discussion groups

We believe in delivering skills and knowledge on and off the farm to empower your team to be integral to the early identification and prompt, effective treatment of lame cows.

Find out more about our upcoming courses

RoMs accredited mobility scoring

Mobility scoring can be used as a regular tool for early detection of lame cows for treatment, as a herd monitoring tool to support you in making data-driven decisions within your herd, and as an as an audit tool for milk contracts.

All our mobility scorers are RoMS ‘Register of Mobility Scorers’. We provide independent mobility scoring using the AHDB mobility scoring system (0–3).

Trimming services

Providing prompt and effective treatment of new lameness cases and referral vet trims for difficult cases. We have an affiliated foot trimmer, Neil Bishop, Knel Livestock Services.