Animal Health Planning Pays

The Farm Business Survey included an animal health and welfare module asking some general questions about animal health planning. It also included more detailed questions on livestock type, expenditure and disease prevention and veterinary expenses.

The analysis carried out on the data collected showed that 73% of farms had a formal written plan for at least one of the livestock species they kept. The principal reason for the health plan was for marketing and farm assurance schemes.

Beef farms with health plans had mortality rates 1.8% lower than farms with no plans and enterprise output (EO) was £10/head higher. They spent £2/head less on vet & med expenses and expenditure on routine vet costs on farms with no plans was double that of farms with plans. A total of 54% of farms with plans were in the low mortality group. Calf mortality was highest in the group with no formal health plans.

Vet & med expenditure on dairy farms did not vary much with economic performance on herd size but the higher performing farms spent more on routine vet services and had the lowest overall mortality rate. The high performance farms were also those with the largest average herd size though they did also have the highest incidence rate for mastitis. The dairy farms with the higher mortality rates spent less on routine vet services and more on non-routine services than farms with lower mortality rates.

Mortality rates on sheep farms without health plans were highest at 7.1% on average. Lamb and ewe mortality was lower overall for farms with formal written plans or instructions and the average EO was £7 higher per breeding ewe than for farms without a plan. Farms with higher mortality rates generally spent less on vet & med than those with lower mortality rates.

Mortality rates on pig farms of all types was 11%. Where the sample was of breeding herds selling weaned or fat pigs the mortality rate went up to 15% and where the holding type was fattening, rearing or other the rate went down to 5%. It was not possible to produce analysis by plan type due to a shortage of the relevant data.

Vets are the main source of information for animal health matters for farmers. Less than a sixth of farmers had specific animal health insurance. The most likely to have insurance were dairy farmers followed by beef, pigs and sheep.