Animal Health Plans

Includes sections on:

 

The Standards

The Compendium of UK Organic Standards (Defra, 2006) states that:

The development and management of organic livestock systems requires special care in nurturing positive health and vitality, ensuring the proper control of disease and the encouragement of positive animal welfare. ("Positive welfare" is used here in the sense used by Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) to mean the satisfaction of the animal's needs, including behavioural needs and not merely the avoidance of cruelty.)

This must be provided for by a plan drawn up by the farmer, preferably working in partnership with a veterinary surgeon and agreed between them during and after conversion, to develop and operate an organic livestock system which conforms to these Standards.

The plan must ensure the development of a pattern of health building and disease control measures appropriate to the particular circumstances of the individual farm and allow for the evolution of a farming system progressively less dependent on allopathic veterinary medicinal products.

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What is a health plan?

According to Defra’s Animal Health and Welfare Strategy for Great Britain (Defra, 2004) livestock owners can improve the health and welfare of their animals through animal health planning, involving:

• identification of risks of introduction and spread of disease and infections;

• early recognition of disease; and

• prioritising measures to control any existing problems and manage risks, including the responsible use of medicines.

 Church and Rudman (2006) propose the following generic farm health planning template

 

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What is an organic health plan?

Hovi et al (2004) view the development of health planning in organic farming as having to be closely associated with the definition of the concept of animal health in organic production.

A health plan that incorporates the “positive health” approach would need to concentrate on health rather than disease diagnosis, identification of risk factors and disease avoidance. Definitions of health, as applied to human health by WHO (2006), encompass physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (cited by Hovi, 2004). Hovi et al (2004) describe health planning in organic farming as an effort to promote the general health of the individual or the herd by actively improving it living conditions in two ways:

1. through breeding to select animals well suited to individual farm conditions; and

2. through the provision of access to species-specific feed, housing and the freedom to express natural behaviour.

However, the requirements of a health plan for organic farms are not sufficiently specific to exclude the more commonly adopted plans used widely in non-organic farming.  The UK organic standards (Defra, 2006) suggest that an established, recognised template, such as the Bristol Welfare Assurance Programme template (http://www.vetschool.bris.ac.uk/animalwelfare), is used as for developing health plans.

The Soil Association Certification Ltd (2007) require a livestock conversion/management plan before the start of the organic conversion period.. The requirements for a health plan includes identification of any persistent health problems, preventive husbandry techniques and all veterinary treatments that are likely to be used on a regular basis. Quarantine measures for all bought-in and sick animals need to be specified as do details of young stock management. Guidance is also provided for other livestock management issues such as housing and feeding, although interestingly these are not included under the heading of health planning. For more on Soil Association livestock conversion guidelines.

 

The UK certification body Organic Farmers and Growers (OF&G) recommend the Technical Leaflet 105 - A Guide to Developing Health Plans on Organic Livestock Units for developing health plans and the pro-forma Health Plan Record sheet, or equivalent, should be used to record the contents (see Health Plan Examples below)

 

Defra project OF0382 "Minimising medicine use in organic dairy herds through animal health and welfare planning" aims to develop principles for animal health and welfare planning in organic dairy herds, including the application of animal based parameters. As part of the project, a review of animal health plans in the UK was undertaken. 

The Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (the HACCP concept) approach has been proposed to monitor risk factors for diseases and to control these risk factors as a means to prevent diseases (Bonde and Sorensen, 2004). 

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Good Practice

The following Do's and Don'ts of Health Planning are suggested by the BCVA at http://www.ndfas.org.uk/standards/herd_v2.asp

Do:

Don't

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Health Plan Examples

The Soil Association Certification Ltd produce herd health plan templates which may be used by organic producers although the format is not compulsory. Example of a Soil Association Beef Herd Health Plan.

Organic Farmers and Growers (OF&G) recommend the use of Record Sheet 17 - Animal Health Plan, with a separate sheet for each health problem.

The British Cattle Veterinary Association (BCVA) Herd Health Plan sets out in a structured document, basic strategies, protocols and operating procedures to control and minimise disease. There are two plans; one a comprehensive plan to cover all aspects of herd health and productivity on a cattle farm, the other a more simplified version which has been created to comply with the specific requirements of the National Dairy Farm Assured Scheme.

Both BCVA Herd Health Plans cover the common conditions that affect welfare and productivity in cattle herds, and in particular dairy farms. The new Health Planner is designed for use in beef suckler herds and other types of cattle farms. The plans cover such conditions such as lameness, mastitis, parasites, infectious disease, fertility and reproductive diseases, as well as creating standard procedures for the handling, storage and disposal of medicines. The plans also cover biosecurity and the procedures that should be adopted to prevent the introduction of disease into a farm. There is a specific section on how animals may be introduced into the herd safely and without undue risk to the health of the animals introduced, and to any that already exist on the farm.
 

The Grazing Animal Project (GAP) provides a guide to devising and implementing animal health plans, including advice on biosecurity, housing, disease prevention and treatment, health schemes and a comprehensive list of contacts. The guide also has useful example case studies.

A web-based, interactive decision support tool (DestVAC, www.destvac.reading.ac.uk) has been created that allows farm specific exploration of risk factors and risk management measures, access to additional information on vaccines, exposure and the financial impact of disease at farm level. It is aimed at helping organic livestock producers and their veterinarians to assess an individual farm situation in relation to a specific disease risk, to implement specific risk management measures and to communicate the decision with adequate precision to the certification bodies. Destvac also provides certification bodies with baseline information on risk factors and risk management measures and their significance, so that the could judge veterinary/farmer decisions on vaccine use adequately. The tool focuses on 10 cattle and 14 sheep diseases that are routinely vaccinated against in the UK. Destvac allows the user to produce reports on individual farm assessments or exploratory scenario building for submission to certification bodies as part of a health plan (Hovi, 2003). Destvac was produced as part of Defra-funded project OF0310 "Vaccine use in organic cattle and sheep systems: Development of a decision support tool based on risk assessment" (The University of Reading, 2003).

See also Vaccination, Biosecurity, Responsible Use of Veterinary Medicines

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Health Schemes

The Farm Health Planning project is a key Defra initiative under the Animal Health and Welfare Strategy.

SAC offers flockmasters membership of nationally recognised schemes to screen against Enzootic Abortion and Maedi Visna/Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis. Members are awarded certificates of health status following successful testing programmes. The Premium Sheep & Goat Health Schemes works in partnership with veterinary surgeons across the country.  The PSGHS is serviced by SAC vets who have expertise covering all aspects of sheep and goat health issues.  PSGHS seeks to attract new scheme members and to promote high health status stock to the industry. Currently PSGHS offer the following:

The Welsh Black Cattle Society's Herd Health Scheme has been developed with the aim of improving health standards within participating herds, leading to certification of freedom from certain diseases of international importance such as Johne's disease, BVD., Leptospira, and IBR.

HI Health Ltd is an accredited farmer led organisation that offers Scottish livestock farmers health planning and disease eradication and accreditation.  The scheme was modelled on existing farmer led schemes in Scandinavia and other European countries.

 

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