Wynnstay’s recent SQP workshops saw 70 of the company’s animal health advisers primed to assist Welsh sheep producers stamp out flock foot problems.

The company’s four events trained delegates on how to help sheep farmers implement the industry-accepted five-point lameness reduction plan.

Workshop moderator and independent sheep vet Phillipa Page from Flock Health Limited, said: “The five-point plan offers sheep producers a clear lameness management strategy and a practical protocol for reducing the incidence of this costly problem.

“However, farmers are quite often unsure how to get started, but by offering this training to SQPs within the animal health trade we hope many more sheep producers will benefit from the helping hand they can provide.”

Ms Page said that lameness should not be accepted as part and parcel of sheep farming and that autumn was a good time to help farmers get started with the five-point plan.

She added: “Implemented correctly, the five-point plan builds a flock’s resilience to disease through culling persistently lame animals, reduces the infection challenge on the farm and establishes immunity through correct vaccination.

“Many flocks around the country are seeing the benefits of implementing this plan and sheep lameness nationally would be dramatically reduced if more Welsh farmers adopted it.”