November is a big month in terms of the animal health calendar. Millions of animals move indoors during the month in Ireland and with that comes lots of problems and issues.

The big one is the change in the animal’s environment and how it copes with this. If the animal is compromised or its immune system isn’t up to scratch the stress of housing can sometimes lead to outbreaks of pneumonia. After housing, it’s important to be very vigilant for any changes in behaviour while making sure that all animals are up and eating at morning and evening feeding. Where corners are being cut and cost cutting is in place, it’s important that animal health isn’t let slide. Sick animals are a lot more expensive to look after than healthy ones.

Darren Carty takes a look at straw usage and the implications of an earlier housing date given the wet weather over the last week. Where funds are tight, some farmers may opt to reduce straw purchases but this isn’t a good strategy to cut costs in the long run and could lead to higher animal health costs.

Aidan Brennan takes a look at selective dry cow therapy. The legislation which has been introduced states that antibiotics cannot be used to compensate for poor hygiene or poor farm management. Aidan sets out the challenges that this poses on dairy farms and what best practice is.

We put our readers’ questions to Offaly-based vet Donal Lynch. Donal answers a wide variety of questions that came in from different farm systems.

We will be continuing this series over the winter months so if you have any animal health-related questions over the next few weeks, email or text them in and we will get them answered on a special animal health page that will be published in the paper over the winter.

You can send your questions to vet@farmersjournal.ie or WhatsApp them to 086-836 6465