The Dairy Edge

Conor McAloon, Professor of Veterinary Epidemiology and Director of the Centre for Veterinary Epidemiology and Risk Analysis (CVERA) at UCD joins Stuart Childs to give us an update on Bluetongue and other midge borne viruses in Ireland currently.

Conor says he had not seen any convincing evidence that blue tongue overwintered in Ireland from 2025 and believes that the 2026 cases that are being picked up were more likely linked to infected midges arriving from the UK during the summer.  

While this was good from the point of view of it not hitting during the early stages of the breeding season, he expects infections that occurred during autumn to bring a risk of abortions and calves with congenital or neurological problems in spring 2027.
Conor says that vaccination matters, but plans may need to change: vaccination was a sound decision for the herds that chose it albeit no vaccine is 100% effective, it did protect the herds that did go that route. An annual booster for now, pending more information, will be required in 2027 but vaccination advice will have to be adapted each year potentially as different disease risks emerge and recede.

He finishes by saying be prepared and make decisions with good advice: midge-borne disease incursions are likely to become more common and farmers should take an adaptable approach to animal health. 

He stresses working with vets and advisers, weighing vaccine costs against potential losses and the labour of managing sick or affected animals as key in helping people make the decisions necessary for their own farm.

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
 
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher highlights the top actions that need to be done, including:
Assess % area grazed
Monitor average farm cover
Graze priority ground
Read more from the latest Grass10 newsletter at:
https://bit.ly/Grass10-3rdNov 

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
 
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

Aisling Claffey, Teagasc ruminant nutrition specialist, joins Stuart Childs to discuss the importance of dry cow minerals to the success of your calving season.

Aisling explains that magnesium is key. Pre-calving minerals need to supply enough magnesium to support the cow’s ability to mobilise calcium around calving. She also highlights the importance of vitamins—particularly vitamin D and the role it has for milk fever prevention also.

Consistency is vital with minerals. Missing minerals for a day or two can matter, especially when many cows are close to calving. As people are getting better at their soil fertility, Aisling believes people should test silage for minerals annually as silage potassium can vary from year to year and as this may interfere with magnesium absorption, farmers need to be aware of the feed that they are feeding. 

Milk fever can have wider consequences. Low calcium can affect muscle function, calving and rumen contractions, and intake. It is known as a gateway disease with transition-cow problems as well as mastitis all likely to follow so prevention is important and key to this is a good mineral fed consistently.

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
 
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

For this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, John Maher highlights the top actions that need to be done, including:
Average farm cover dropping
Assess AFC on farm
Assess % area grazed
Implement on-off grazing

Read more from the latest Grass10 newsletter at:
https://bit.ly/Grass10-27thOct

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
 
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com

As we come towards the end of the lactation, getting the drying-off process right is important to ensure good udder health and set cows up correctly for the next lactation. 

This week, James Dunne is joined by Padraig O’Connor from Teagasc to go through best practice when drying off, from planning and preparing cows to carrying out the process and managing cows in the days afterwards.

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/
 
The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com