Stories
Herd health notes crews carry in the bakkie.
The crews who check the deer every day fill in our vet calendars. Each entry says what to check, in which camp and by when. A morning with the sika crew last August shows how the calendar is used.
It was a late winter morning, still crisp but with the promise of sun, when I walked the fenceline at the Sika Quiet Pasture with our herd husbandry manager and our stud records lead. We stopped where a young Sika hind limped, favouring her near fore. Our herd husbandry manager pulled out his small pocket notebook: pencilled in was the date of the last hoof check, the notes on pasture stones, and the reminder to adjust mineral blocks this week. He’d copied those reminders from my vet calendar by hand.
He could act on the limp there and then because the notes were in his pocket. Every crew leader now carries the week’s entries the same way.
A few years back, we tried sending out monthly health reminders by email. Few of the crew read them. Even when foot-and-mouth disease movement controls tightened, gaps in hoof checks or vaccine dates caught us out. We missed a lice outbreak in the red deer because the note was buried under other admin.
Now, vet calendars live in the kraal and in each bakkie. Each routine, from Sika TB skin tests to drench reminders for fallow deer, is simple and visible. We mark the bad years, like the hard frost a few winters back, and the small wins, like zero tick fever through last autumn.
Our calendar combines the vet’s schedule with the crew’s weekly camp rounds. I keep ours short, seasonal and easy to read at a glance. Notes are pinned up at entry gates and inside the cold room, never out of sight. If a crew leader changes, the notes stay with the team.
The Sika Quiet Pasture gets its own line for each check, because a sick animal is easy to miss in a small, shy herd. We add warnings about ticks after berg winds or dry spells, and a red mark for any herd under state vet quarantine.
When a very strong El Niño is forecast, we mark extra checks for water points and stress signs in all camps. Sika, especially, go quiet when under pressure, so our calendar calls out for early signs of weight loss or patchy coats.
Mistakes are costly: one missed week can mean a lost season for a stud line or a preventable outbreak. We revise the calendar after every season and after any missed check.
For any vet queries or programme notes, the best way to reach our team is through our contact form.
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Hoof checks and TB tests for the Sika Quiet Pasture run from the vet calendar.
