Sharp move from Blade after it forges two-way alliance

- Published: 21 July, 2006

Blade Farming South West has launched a new alliance with

Pfizer Animal Health and Westpoint Veterinary Consultancy to provide co-ordinated veterinary support to its professional calf rearers and beef finishers.

Believed to be the first integrated initiative of its kind, the partnership is designed to prevent disease and reduce business risk, ensuring consistently high

quality beef and profitable returns for rearers and finishers.

Blade Farming South West is offering new, fixed-price, low-risk contracts for professional calf rearers and finishers to meet high demand for premium beef in the retail and foodservice sectors. Attractive contracts for the supply of calves, in a breeding scheme using 'donor cows', are also available to farmers with an excellent track record on calf care and farm bio-security.

Richard Phelps, managing

director at Blade, said: "Disease can stunt growth and add to cost. So improving animal health practices and recruiting top-flight calf rearers and beef finishers, who understand the importance of feeding and good animal husbandry, removes a

huge source of variability in the end product. This is why Pfizer Animal Health, supplying market leading Rispoval vaccines against respiratory disease, Dectomax

wormer-lice treatment and any veterinary medicines required tactically, is vital to the success of this supply chain partnership."

Pfizer vet Carolyn Hogan said: "Many calves that get a

respiratory infection never catch up. Worse still, evidence exists that when animals in a group of calves get pneumonia, a high proportion

of the apparently unaffected house-mates can also suffer lung damage and impaired growth rates."