HERE is the weekly farming diary from Kirsty Howson.

Autumn is a busy time of year for farmers and farm vets as we get ready for the housing season.

Youngstock have been out all summer and are ready for a check over, some may need pregnancy checking and many of our beef herds will be completing their annual blood test screen for infectious diseases such as IBR and Johnes.

As our cattle diets change, we often see a few sick cows with digestive upsets and twisted stomachs but so far so good.

However, the unseasonably warm weather is perfect for pneumonia especially in younger stock.

There are several aspects to reducing pneumonia incidence on farm and the best results are seen by tackling the disease from two main angles.

The first is reducing the environmental pressure (bugs) on-farm, including measures such as reducing stocking density, avoiding mixing different age groups and improving shed ventilation.

The second is increasing immunity of your stock through ensuring adequate intakes of high-quality, antibody-rich colostrum from the dam, optimising nutrition to allow the immune system to function well and using targeted vaccines to enhance immunity.

As there are several bacteria and viruses which can be involved, it is important to establish which bugs are present on farm to ensure we can advise on an appropriate vaccination protocol.

Finally, it is important to be aware of other pathogens which may be on farm and further complicate disease outbreaks – BVD and IBR are two of the most common and their presence on farm should be monitored by bulk milk sampling or blood testing in the case of beef animals.

Last week I spent my time teaching DIY Artificial Insemination (AI) to a number of clients.

We run this course a couple of times a year depending on demand.

Training farmers to carry out these tasks is both more cost effective than using an external company and more rewarding to be able to manage all areas of fertility yourselves.

We are always after a new challenge so if there are new skills you would like to learn, give us a buzz and we will see what we can come up with.