In his four months at the post of district vet for South Eastern Local Land Services (LLS), veterinarian Henry Clutterbuck has been fielding calls about the potential for a worsening drought to affect the region.
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An English expat, Dr Clutterbuck began work as the new district vet at LLS in July.
The transition from Marulan to Cooinda Vet has been without mishap, he said.
Dr Clutterbuck’s predecessor, Dr Bill Johnson, was the district vet at LLS for 24 years, and Dr Clutterbuck said he continued to go to him for advice and district information.
“It’s a fresh pair of eyes and a fresh look,” Dr Clutterbuck said.
One lady kindly suggested to Dr Clutterbuck, on the suggestion of having big shoes to fill, “Just say you’ve brought your own shoes.”
Dr Clutterbuck works in an advisory role for landholders and closely with senior agriculture advisor on livestock, Matt Lieschke.
Both Dr Clutterbuck and Mr Lieschke have continued to advise landholders about the potential for an arid and dry summer season.
Concerned landholders have said to the Crookwell Gazette that water requirements are an issue as dams continue to recede.
“It’s one thing to feed them, but it’s a whole different thing to water them,” one landholder said.
Dr Clutterbuck said water audits should be a priority.
“For some people it might be too late. The water won’t last for the stock they have,” Dr Clutterbuck said.
“For them, they need to de-stock or manage stock closely for dehydration.”
Dr Clutterbuck was adamant that food testing should be a requirement to determine if crude protein requirements were being met.
A food test would show metabolisable energy, crude protein and micronutrient levels. It was important for people to start looking at whether the feed was meeting requirements of the stock, he said.
Some people weren’t familiar with how much stock required in terms of metabolisable energy, Dr Clutterbuck said.
“Your dry cow, you’re looking at 65mg to 80mg per day, per cow.
“That jumps massively when you get to the lactating cow in the first four months: 110-130mg of energy it is a huge difference,” Dr Clutterbuck said.
Assessing whether or not this was in the feed was really important, Dr Clutterbuck said.
Consider how much access was needed to quality feed, and how long it could continue, then ask whether this would see them through till the end of summer.
NSW Department of Primary Industries has a drought feed calculator suitable for full hand feeding.
Dr Clutterbuck attended Sydney University to undertake his veterinary degree, and then completed an honours degree with NSW Health.
“My main interest area is infectious diseases, I have done quite a lot of work with zoonoses,” Dr Clutterbuck said. Zooneses are infectious diseases that can be transmitted between animals and humans, such as Q Fever.
“We are here in an advisory capacity, don’t feel afraid of picking up the phone and having a chat, everyone here is capable of providing support and advice and keen to help out,” Dr Clutterbuck said.