Christmas holidays and office closure

We would like to thank all our customers for their business throughout the year of 2018. We wish you a very happy holiday season and a prosperous new year.  Office close down period  – Closing Friday 21st at 3pm and will reopen on Wednesday 2nd Jan at 8.30am

Craigdoo flock benefits from ProVitaMin and Pedigree

The Grant brothers Mike, John and Patrick run the successful Craigdoo Suffolk and Blackie flocks near Kilcoo in Co Down. John and Patrick are veterinarians, involved as a partner and a pig specialist, and sheep specialist respectively within the Parklands Veterinary Group. Their farm is situated 600ft above sea level near the Mourne mountains. The enterprises consist of 130 pure breed Lanark Blackface ewes, 75 pedigree Suffolk ewes, 500 commercial ewes, 7,000 finishing pigs and a suckler herd. Recent successes include receiving £9,000 for a Blackie at Lanark in 2017. The brothers are driven to achieve even more success in the future. With an extensive embryo transfer program this year, they are set to continue the rapid genetic progression of their flocks.

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Provita Hoofsure Endurance helps farmers control lameness in sheep

An independent study on the effectiveness of footbath solutions for sheep with feet problems showed improvements after one pass through a footbath containing Hoofsure Endurance 2%*

Gavin Blair and his family run a 400 ewe flock and 80 suckler and beef herd near Moneymore. The flock consists of mule ewes put to Suffolk and Texel rams. Lambing takes place from February to April.

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Provita Advance+ – The multi-functional inoculant

Provita Advance+ is available in liquid and granular form. The ready to use granular product is available in 20kg tubs that treats 50 tonne and is applied at 400g per tonne treated. The 1 kg powder to liquid box treats 100 tonnes of silage. Advance+ liquid is a ready to use product and can be applied at standard 2L per tonne treated down to low-volume 40ml per tonne.

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Club Secretary of Spa YFC happy with Provita products

Hannah Shaw, Club Secretary of Spa YFC was recently selected for a YFCU Exchange in Norway. Provita sponsored her t-shirts for the trip.

Hannah has bought and reared her own calves for the past four years on the family farm, whose overall work ethic is to ensure that their animals are as healthy and thriving as well as possible. Part of the farm’s animal health programme is to use Provita Protect for newly born or bought-in calves. Provita Protect is the only medicinally licensed probiotic (POM-VPS) for the prevention of calf scour. Calves fed milk replacer also get Provita WD Ruminant feed additive to boost the rumen development to further prevent any upsets and use the milk nutrients efficiently to help thrift. Hannah and the Shaw family use Provita Promist to fog sheds when cattle groups are housed over the autumn period. The results were very noticeable in 2017 when mixing various batches of cattle in the same air space as no groups developed acute coughs or any respiratory distress upon housing.  The respiratory health in bought-in calves has been greatly improved with use of Provita Promist and they will continue to use it as best practice during 2018. The Shaw family have recently started using Provita Combat hoof and wound spray after they dehorn calves. This protects the wound from infection, helps it to heal quickly and seals it nicely to stop any bleeds when calves accidentally hit that area.

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ProVitaMin: Tried and Tested by farmers across Northern Ireland

Farmers across Northern Ireland continue to trust ProVitaMin to help correct deficiencies, improve fertility and growth rates amongst their flocks.

Paddy and Michael Mullan run the family farm Drimhill, near Swatragh which sits 1000 feet above sea level. Their farm consists of 350 ewes, consisting of 300 purebred Lanark Blackfaced ewes, 40 crossbred mules and 10 purebred Leister ewes, and 30 suckler cows.

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Controlling Lameness in Sheep during the summer

Lameness is a major health and welfare problem in the UK. A study by Professor Laura Green, at the University of Warwick calculated that lameness cost UK farmers between £70M and £210M annually.* During summer months lameness problems can be higher due to higher stocking rates, longer grass and damp conditions.

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Advance+ for wholecrop, it is not just for grass!

Co Armagh milk producer and beef farmer Dean Wright will grow approximately 40-45 acres of wholecrop each year. The main purpose of this crop is to utilise the reseeded sward the following years, but in saying that, the wholecrop silage is maximised fully, like everything on this farm.

‘I have always found wholecrop to be a good yielding, healthy crop; with plenty of energy and very useful for balancing feed rations.’ The wholecrop is fed to all groups on the farm with Dean pointing out, ‘it is great feeding for beef cattle.’

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