The New Thrums Flock Health Club

Thrums Flock Health Club is changing, find out how below.

At Thrums we have run a Flock Health Club successfully for over five years, and hopefully we have achieved what we set out to do – bringing like minded farmers together for sheep health discussions and a bit of a social, whilst encouraging proactive health tasks, centered around health planning, that we see as being key to running a healthy productive flock.

Five years on and hopefully we’ve all learnt something and, taking stock, we feel it is time for the club to have a freshen up, embrace some new ideas and widen the appeal to more flocks. As such we’re very excited to introduce our new Gold, Silver and Bronze Flock Health packages as well as the concept of dynamic health planning to you, which these packages compliment.

A brief introduction to the concept of dynamic health planning is below as well as the contents of our new packages and it would be great if you could take a minute to read and consider what might be best for you and your flock. However, we’d appreciate the chance to talk it all through with you and as such we’re delighted to announce our next meeting will be at 6pm on Monday 24th July at the Strathmore Golf Centre to discuss infectious abortion, fertility issues and introduce the new club. As ever, the world famous buffet will be on offer, and a big thank you to MSD Animal Health for sponsoring. This will be an open meeting for anyone who might be interested, so please feel free to let your friends know and share the information.

Please let us know by email to ed@thrumsvet.co.uk or by contacting the surgery in the usual manner if you intend to come along.

If you’re unable to attend but would like to know more or simply sign up to one of the packages then please get in touch however is easiest for you.

What is Dynamic Health Planning?

A dynamic health plan splits the annual whole health plan review into quarterly bitesize chunks with the aim of making it time efficient and seasonally relevant. No need to sit down for an hour or more and cover everything, we aim to have a 15 minute chat four times a year at a time that suits you; this could be whilst on farm for another job, popping into the practice or even over Zoom. At the start of the process we will set production targets for the year ahead and critically review our progress as we go. Thrums would remain responsible for arranging appointments and setting reminders, so no need for you to remember to do so!

These meetings would typically look something like this:

• August: Review lamb growth and lamb mortality. Plan for tupping and fertility and risk plan for 3 months ahead.
• November: Review the “standing health plan”, antibiotic review and benchmarking. Risk plan for 3 months ahead.
• February: Review scanning and adult mortality. Plan for lambing, risk plan for 3 months ahead.
• May: Review lambing and neonatal mortality. Plan for grazing and parasite control, risk plan for 3 months ahead.

Of course, should you wish, you can still be part of the club and remain on a “traditional” health plan. However, we intend this new approach to be more time efficient, focused and relevant whilst still “ticking the box” of compliance.

The new Flock Health Club Packages