Dairy Cow antibiotic reduction conference a must for the professional dairy farmer.

December the 7th, at the Royal Bath & West Showground, Aled Rhys Davies, Managing Director of Pruex Ltd will be one of the speakers at the innovation for agriculture dairy cow antibiotic reduction conference. So, he’ll need to get out of his overalls, stop his farm visits, forget his lab coat and his laboratory work and concentrate on the dissemination of what he has learned since the completion of his Nuffield Farming Scholarship on Alternatives to Antibiotics in Agriculture.

When asked about the challenges farm animals face, Aled commented, “At the start of my Nuffield study, I had very little recollection of the difference between innate and adaptive immunity. That was probably a good thing as I found myself asking some pretty basic questions to some pretty impressive people. The result being a truly balanced, non commercially biased impression as to what agriculture needs to do to reduce stress in the form of bacterial loading on our farmed animals.”

Pruex works with farmers to develop evidence as to where bacterial infections occur in their animals. “Once farmers know why they need to change some practices on their farms, they are brilliant at working out how to do so. Pruex helps them decide on how to limit infection pressure”, claims Aled.

To avoid financial penalties from elevated Somatic Cell Counts in milk, farmers will often hold milk from problem cows back from the bulk tank. Whilst a short term fix, this strategy certainly doesn’t get at the heart of the problem. At the conference, Aled will offer some practical alternatives that farmers can use to prevent the infection of cows udders in the first place. “Contamination of milk by sick cows is a problem that will only escalate unless we start the process of fixing now. To do so, farmers need evidence of what needs changing to prevent sick cows. Attending the conference would be a good place to start,” said Aled.

Further details including booking forms are available from the organisers