Data-driven decisions for beef and sheep systems

Beef and sheep enterprises can present challenges for data capture and analysis, which can be demotivating for both farmers and veterinarians. Veterinarians are well placed to address these challenges through skills in data analysis and knowledge of the farm system, enterprise aims and farmer preferences. ‘Easy options' can be used as a starting point, such as counting wet, dry and field dead lambs with a bucket system or using movement data to assess calving patterns. technicianniciannology exists to allow data capture and analysis, with a variety of options available from basic to more advanced, depending on requirements. Antimicrobial sales data are also available to veterinarians. These data can be entered into the AHDB Medicine Hub to calculate antibiotic-use metrics for use at both the individual farm and ruminant-sector level.