Lisa Whitfield - Farm Vet Services

Lisa Whitfield - Farm Vet Services Providing you with Independent Veterinary Services, for Farms and Lifestyle Blocks in the Manawatu She gained her Masters degree in Veterinary Medicine in 2016.

Lisa has worked with all farm animal species during her 15 years as a Veterinarian, including regularly working with cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and South American camelids (Alpaca and Llama). She loves using ultrasound in large animal cases to assist in making the most accurate diagnosis for each patient. She is also a highly experienced dairy vet, with particular expertise in managing mastitis in

dairy cattle. Lisa is accredited by the National Mastitis Advisory Committee to provide Mastitis and Milk Quality services to Fonterra and will provide milk quality services to any dairy farms in need of advice. She has developed her own low-cost milk culture technique to enable farms to dive further into managing high cell count and clinical mastitis cases. Lisa completed a 12-month internship in Equine Clinics at Massey University, which provided a great skillset for veterinary care of horses. Lisa established Lisa Whitfield Farm Vet Services in 2020/21. The business has now grown into a sustainable, service-driven, mobile large animal veterinary business. In addition to her veterinary career, Lisa spent 3 years working fulltime on 260 cow dairy farm in the Manawatu as a farm assistant. This experience gave her valuable understanding of the practical nature of farming, and underpinned the seasonal cycles driving decision-making for animal health on farms. Education and sharing knowledge is her passion, and in addition to the educational content written for the LWFVS page, Lisa has written regular 'Vets Voice' articles for the New Zealand Dairy Exporter, covering off health topics and case studies relevant to dairy cattle.

Introducing Leo and Lemon - two lovely, 1 month old lambs which are being reared by a local family as pet day lambs.Leo ...
24/08/2026

Introducing Leo and Lemon - two lovely, 1 month old lambs which are being reared by a local family as pet day lambs.

Leo had recently developed a dirty tail and the owner noticed he had developed diarrhoea. There had been no significant changes in his feed management - he had been on a consistent feeding regime and being fed appropriately for his age.

We were called to examine Leo after he started to go off his bottle. His friend Lemon had also developed diarrhoea.

On examination, Leo was bright and inquisitive. He had a normal temperature and was not dehydrated.
His navel was completely healed up and his lungs were clear.

While we were there, he provided a very watery f***l sample and then proceeded to keep straining for a few minutes afterwards.

We examined Lemon and found very similar findings, and she was straining excessively as well.

So what was bothering Leo and Lemon?

Given these lambs were a few weeks old, many of the usual viral suspects could be ruled out simply by their age. Nutritional causes seemed unlikely as they had been on a stable feeding plan, although they had been nibbling on some plants through the fence which could have been contributing.

We decided to take the f***l samples and look at them under the microscope to see whether any organisms such as coccidia were present.

Leo and Lemon were provided with some pain relief and as they were still feeding well, were left with free access to water and hay.

So what did we find down the microscope?

Coccidiosis!

Coccidia is a protozoal organism which lives in the environment and can affect lambs from as early as 3 to 4 weeks of age. The oocysts of the organism are readily visible down the microscope, so a diagnosis can be made quickly in conjunction with the clincial sign of diarrhoea.

Most often lambs will become immune to the organism without requiring any treatment whatsoever, however occasionally we will see cases such as this where the diarrhea starts to affect the lambs feeding and comfort levels, in which case treatment is required.

Leo and Lemon both received a dose of an anticoccdial drug called Toltrazuril. This usually only requires a single dose to effectively treat the coccidia infection.

While many weaning meals will contain a coccidiostat to prevent this, it requires lambs to be eating enough meal to get an effective dose, and is not a guarantee that a lamb won't get a clincial infection still. Any stressors such as cold weather, feed changes or social pressure can be enough for the organism to overcome what is typically dealt with by a good immune system response.

Leo and Lemon have a dedicated family caring for them. Calling for help with a problem before an animal gets seriously unwell from it is a great way to minimise the impact on the animals health and early intervention improves the chances of a full recovery dramatically.

All the best to Leo and Lemon as they recovery from their dirty back ends this week!

We have been out and about disbudding calves over the last few weeks, and we often spot things which have ended up in th...
23/08/2026

We have been out and about disbudding calves over the last few weeks, and we often spot things which have ended up in the calf pens, which really shouldn't be there...

Make sure your baling twine, netting and nails are not accessible to curious calves which will pull whatever they can reach into their pens if they can.

After a day of helping animals stay alive and assisting others to pass away with dignity, it was great to end the day by...
20/08/2026

After a day of helping animals stay alive and assisting others to pass away with dignity, it was great to end the day by helping these two newbies into the world!

What did we find in there...?This 5y/o Kiwicross cow was having difficulty calving and was down in the paddock. When we ...
05/08/2026

What did we find in there...?

This 5y/o Kiwicross cow was having difficulty calving and was down in the paddock.

When we arrived, she was flat out on her side and making no progress with passing anything at all.

After administering an epidural, our examination of the calving presentation found not one, not two, but three legs and a head all trying to come out at the same time. That wasn't going to work!

In this case the two most likely possibilities were either tangled up twins, or a deformed calf with extra legs or another severe deformity.

All of the legs that were presented felt like front legs, so we hedged our bets on tangled twins and hoped that we could make some headway on getting her calved.

Unfortunately due to the cow being flat out on her side, we made little progress initially, as the head of the calf was buried underneath all of the legs, and there was not much room to fix anything. Pushing all of the presented legs back in didn't help either.

Sometimes repositioning the cow can shift everything sufficiently to make a difference. The cow was helped to sit up and managed to steady herself in a frog-leg position, which made my life a lot easier. And low and behold, a second head was now able to be felt further back behind the first one.

Tangled twins!! 🤞🤞🤞

After getting the closest calf head around and straightening its neck into a normal calving position, we tentatively pulled on the two most accessible legs. Thankfully, we were lucky enough to have closen the correct legs for the closest calf, and were able to extract it from its mum without too much more difficulty.

The second calf was ready to go, with two legs and a head all in the right position. With another pull, the second calf was out.

Unfortunately, as you might expect in this situation, both calves had died from being stuck inside too long.

After an assisted calving, we administer oxytocin to help the uterus contract. Due to the muddy calving conditions, we also gave her antibiotics and antiinflammatories. Finally, some starter drench to help replace the energy she had spent and give her a calcium boost.

A challenging but successful calving done ✔️

Now off to thaw out!

#402 is a young dairy cow on a local farm. She calved a couple of days ago and was ready to make her debut in the herd,...
26/07/2026

#402 is a young dairy cow on a local farm. She calved a couple of days ago and was ready to make her debut in the herd, when things started to go wrong.

When she came in for her first milking, she was out of sorts and ended up falling over on the concrete, and wasn't able to get up again.

The farm moved her off the concrete and into a nearby paddock, and we went to examine her the next morning.

402 was trying her best, but didn't have the strength to get all the way up.

On examination, she was significantly dehydrated and had a fast heart rate. She had a normal temperature and her gut was still working. She had cleaned well after calving and had a clear mucus discharge at her cervix.

One essential examination which is often forgotten in down cows is to check their udder for mastitis. In order to do this, we had to lift 402s back left leg up a little and roll her back to be able to check all 4 quarters.

Her front right quarter was tucked right under her in a difficult spot, but while the other 3 quarters stripped normal milk, the front right was watery, yellow and contained clots - mastitis!

A milk sample was collected and our attention turned to treating 402.

Any down cow presenting with mastitis should be treated as a toxic mastitis until proven otherwise.

402 received:

1/ Strong antibiotics into the vein

2/ Antiinflammatories also into the vein

3/ She was stomach tubed with 'Off Feed' electrolytes and energy to support hydration of a toxemic cow

We attempted to lift her but she was unable to keep her feet under her.

We left her with water in easy reach, and the farm would give her baleage, hay and meal to keep her fed as grass was in short supply near the shed.

The fluid therapy via stomach pump is an essential part of treating cows with toxic mastitis.

A fresian heifer such as this can receive 30 to 40L twice a day to support rehydration. We use Selekt Off Feed and Selekt Restore electrolytes as part of this protocol, as calcium, magnesium and potassium are so critical when a cow is freshly calved as well as weak and sick.

Down cows are a big commitment at this time of year on a dairy farm. They really need at least half an hour of dedicated care per day to ensure they are being looked after properly. This includes stomach tubing fluids, providing feed and lifting them multiple times per day. On a dairy farm in spring, time and energy are in short supply, and we really encourage people to think carefully about how much time they are able to put into caring for a sick cow to ensure her needs are being met. If you don't have time to put into caring for her, then consider putting her down rather than leaving her to a slow death.

In this case, the farm were committed to 402s care, and were prepared to put the hard yards to try and save her.

She was to receive antiinflammatories each day while she was down, and fluids via stomach tube twice a day while she was still toxic.

The milk sample was taken back home and processed through our lab to ensure we knew what we were dealing with. By the next morning we had our answer - E.coli mastitis as expected!

Knowing the bacteria takes all of the guess work out of treating a mastitis case. We are lucky that we are set up to do milk culturing ourselves. We knew we had provided 402 with the best treatment plan and were giving her the best chance of recovery.

Sometimes it takes a few days of intensive care to get a cow like 402 back on her feet - we continue to keep our fingers and toes crossed that she is able to turn a corner and get back on track for a career as a milking cow!

If you have mastitis cases popping up and would like to stop guessing at what to treat each case with, give us a call - we are happy to help!

As you drive around the countryside it is very apparent that spring is in the air - lots of lambs are on the ground and ...
25/07/2026

As you drive around the countryside it is very apparent that spring is in the air - lots of lambs are on the ground and calves are arriving in the sheds too.

This is the highest risk time of year for all of the heavily pregnant mums-to-be who are out in the elements, dealing with rain, cold and mud. Small hiccups in health or management can quickly become life threatening problems, most especially for ewes.

We were recently called to examine a mixed age ewe who had been noticed acting strangely - she was not moving around the paddock or eating much. She was just...standing.

The ewe was about 8 years old. She had been a successful mother in previous years, and was a couple of weeks off her next due date.

The ewe was not a pet, so what was immediately strange was that she let us walk up to her in the paddock and examine her, and she did not run away. She just stood there.

A neurological exam showed she was completely blind - she had no menace response and a reduced blink reflex. She also had reduced sensation in her ears, and a head tilt to the left hand side. Not good!

Her temperature was normal, she had a regular heartbeat and her lung sounds were loud. She was in good body condition. Other issues included a snotty nose, and she also had a profuse pus discharge coming from her v***a.

With a heavily pregnant ewe, it is important to check two things: her ketone level (to check for sleepy sickness) and whether her pregnancy is still viable - are the lambs still alive.

A simple, ewe-side blood test allows us to check ketone levels in 10 seconds. This ewe had a measurement of 4.0 - this is extremely high and confirmed severe sleepy sickness.

Ultrasound was used to check the viability of the lambs - and fetal heart beats were visible indicating the lambs were still alive.

Next came a difficult conversation - discussing treatment options and the prognosis.

Sleepy sickness on its own is associated with poor survival rates. For this ewe, showing advanced neurological signs and having very high ketone levels, as well as being inappetant and having a profuse purulent discharge and possibly pneumonia too, and still being a couple of weeks off her due date, the prognosis was grave.

It is an extremely important thing to consider the welfare of the animal, the potential costs being faced for treatment and the likely outcome when it comes to these complicated cases. In my opinion there is no wrong answer, you either chose to fully commit to trying to save the animal or you let them go.

In this case the owners chose to euthanise the ewe, which I commend them for as its not an easy decision to make when a ewe is still on her feet.

We are really lucky to have access to a great post mortem service at Massey, and they were able to take the ewe to fully investigate her internal condition.

The post mortem revealed a number of problems which stacked up to the ewe having been in terminal condition.

She had:

1/ Severe fatty liver disease as well as chronic facial eczema - her liver was completely stuffed
2/ Pneumonia
3/ An infection of the caudal reproductive tract
4/ Bacteria causing inflammation in the brain
5/ And she was carrying triplets!

We could have thrown a lot of time and money into trying to save this ewe, however, instead we were able to help her on her way without causing her prolonged suffering.

Many of the ewes we see with sleepy sickness are battling with the other complications this ewe had - we are so grateful to be able to get complete post mortems done at Massey, to understand fully what an animal was dealing with.

This spring is shaping up to be another challenging one for many animals out there - a lot of properties are short on feed, and its critical that ewes in the last month of pregnancy do not go hungry to avoid them developing sleepy sickness. Sleepy sickness is a disease which progresses rapidly - if you notice your heavily pregnant ewe is acting strange or has stopped eating, act on it immediately. Get ketol into them and get them examined as soon as possible. Her life depends on it.

It seems that winter has finally caught up with us here in the Manawatu. The soil is fairly well sodden, and temperature...
10/07/2026

It seems that winter has finally caught up with us here in the Manawatu. The soil is fairly well sodden, and temperatures are low.

At this time of year, grass is growing at its slowest, and if you are rapidly running out of feed, or have already run out, there is still a couple of months to go before grass growth has even a slight chance to catch up with the hungry mouths again.

This week we have been fielding regular enquiries from people wondering what to feed their stock because they are facing that exact situation. Their grass is rapidly running out, and they don't know what to do.
The next questions we usually get asked is what to feed them, and how much to feed.

Before we get into the answer to those questions, its really important to understand a few fundamentals of feeding livestock.

1/ What type of animals are you feeding?
What is their life stage? i.e Are they growing animals, are they adults or are they elderly? Are they pregnant? And what body condition are they in?

Answering these questions allows you to understand how much feed each animal requires. All animals have a basic feed requirement for maintaining their basic body condtion. If an animal is growing, is pregnant, or is very skinny, or is doing lots of exercise, there is an additional requirement for feed, to ensure they dont lose weight. In addition, just because an animal is fat, it doesn't mean you can starve it and it'll be ok.

2/ What is your stocking rate?

When you add up the feed requirement of every single grazing animal on your property, how much feed do they need to eat each day?

3/ How much grass do you have available?
What is the pasture cover where the animals are grazing? What pasture cover are they leaving behind? What pasture cover do they have ahead of them?

This is a very tricky set of questions for many lifestyle owners to answer if you do not have a farming background. And if you are struggling with these questions, you should really be looking at finding someone who can advise you and help you learn how to answer these questions. If you don't know how much feed you have available in terms of pasture, how do you plan ahead to ensure all of your different animals are having their needs met?

4/ How fast is your grass growing?

As mentioned earlier, winter is when grass grows at its slowest - its not rocket science to understand this, but how fast does it actually grow at this time of year? How do we even talk about grass growth rates?
In winter, for example now in July, grass growth can get as low as 0-5kgDM/Ha/day. That means that for every hectare of grass you have, it is growing enough to feed a single yearling beef animal for a day. Compare this to October when grass growth rates could get as high as 50 to 90kgDM/Ha/day - enough to feed 10 times as many animals of the same class. This massive imbalance in pasture growth is really important to understand - many properties are stocked at a level to comfortably feed animals in October, but are not prepared to feed those same animals at the same level in July. In addition soil fertility has a huge impact on grass growth - have you ever done soil tests to see whether your soil is deficient in the nutrients your grass needs to grow?
If the numbers I have mentioned above have you scratching your head, it is a good idea to find someone who can advise you and help you plan your property in terms of animals and grass so you can handle the massive imbalance in feed between winter and spring without your animals starving.

5/ What supplementary feeds do you have available?

Before you reach for your next bag of multifeed nuts, consider this: grain (or any carbohydrate) based feeds are one of the most dangerous feeds you can give your animals. If you aren't aware of this - google rumen acidosis and have a read about it. Grain based feeds are a common cause of serious animal health issues on lifestyle blocks (and on farms too).
Multifeed nuts should not be the mainstay feed for getting your animal through a winter deficit. In fact they should be the last thing you reach for.
Good quality hay and baleage should be the mainstay feeds to keep your animals fed and healthy.

6/ What is the quality of feed being offered?

We often hear that animals won't eat the hay or baleage that is being offered to them. Are you aware that hay can go off if it has been wet or sitting around? Or that baleage doesn't keep for more than a few days once the wrap is opened? Do you know what good quality feed looks like? Or more so do you know what poor quality feed looks like?

There are lots of resources out there to help you answer some of the questions I've posed here, however it can certainly be overwhelming to understand it all and put it into practice - if its any consolation there are entire university degrees which address how to answer each of the bullet points above.

In the meantime, if you are wondering where to put your stock next because they've eaten everything, you need to supplementary feed your stock. Like right now. In actual fact you should have started supplement feeding months ago.

If you are sick of finding yourself in the same situation every July, feel free to reach out - we are here to help!

I ended up with an interesting pair of V shaped bite marks on my forearm today which is a first for me - can you guess w...
03/07/2026

I ended up with an interesting pair of V shaped bite marks on my forearm today which is a first for me - can you guess which species of animal gave me these souvenirs?

27/06/2026

When it rains, it pours...

We often visit client properties in bursts over the year, and after the second or third visit for different animal problems we start to hear comments such as "we haven't had to have the vet out this often for years, what are we doing wrong??".

Some people take it to heart and feel like they are doing something wrong to attract such bad luck, even when they are doing everything right!

Well, I'm here to reassure you that you are not alone - there are lots of us our there in the same boat - if you keep animals, even if you do everything right, you will have unexpected problems crop up - sometimes its just bad luck!

Last night we headed in for the evening content that all of our animals were in good shape given the miserable weather we have had recently.

This morning however, as we headed out get started on the day, I noticed one of our alpaca in strife.

Bella is an 18 month old, healthy, robust female who has never put a foot wrong in terms of health issues...until today.

After a night of rain, it is not normal for alpaca to be rolling on the ground, so it struck me as very very strange to see her down at the back of her paddock, legs flailing about this morning.

Concern quickly kicked in and I headed over to see what was going in.

Bella was in a bad way! She was lying on her side, paddling with her legs, neck arching backward and eyes rolling. S**t!

Thankfully the vet was very handy again so we were able to get onto helping her right away.

My examination showed a normal temperature, normal mucous membrane colour, but a fast heart rate and stressed shallow breathing. She had no menace response (not seeing), but an intact blink reflex. She was having seizures were short and regular, every 1 to 2 minutes. In between seizures she would relax a bit, but she couldn't right herself from lying on her side on the ground.

In an animal with access to little other than pasture, hay and baleage, there are not many things which could cause such a serious presentation out of the blue. My working theory was either Thiamine (B1) deficiency, or a traumatic head injury such as a kick to the head from a calf.

Bella was treated with intravenous and intramuscular thiamine, as a well as an antiinflammatory pain relief. In order to help relieve stress from the seizures, she was also given a dose of muscle relaxant to calm her down.

We then transferred her to our hayshed, and set her up on a deep mat of hay, supported by hay bales to stop her damaging herself in her stricken state.

From then on we watched and waited and crossed our fingers something would change.

After a couple of hours, while the seizures were still occurring, there was a slight improvement in mentation, and she had slightly less deranged movements. A flicker of a menace response gave me hope that something positive was happening, and she was given an oral dose of Thiamine powder dissolved in water.

Morning emergencies meant she was left to her own devices for a while, and when we returned in the early afternoon the frequency of seizures had slowed right down, and she was able to sit herself in sternal recumbency, while still not able to stand up.

We went to check Bella again an hour later, and were shocked to find her out in the paddock near her herd - not a sign that anything had happened other than the fact the was filthy and covered in hay!

It seems unlikely that Thiamine deficiency was the cause of Bellas troubles given that rapid turnaround in her condition, and certainly it wasn't a head injury. My best guess is that she ate some spoiled baleage overnight and became affected by a fungal neurotoxin of some sort. We will probably never know the real answer.

So to all of you doing the best you can and still having animal health troubles among your stock, you are not alone! It happens to everyone, just be thankful you have the skill and knowledge to recognise that something is wrong in the first place :)

Thank you Cuba Bakery Bunnythorpe for another reliable, hot, lunch-on-the-fly after a busy Saturday morning! Amazing to ...
27/06/2026

Thank you Cuba Bakery Bunnythorpe for another reliable, hot, lunch-on-the-fly after a busy Saturday morning!
Amazing to be able to grab something to recharge on, without having to head into town 🌟🌟🌟

Address

1293a Roberts Line
Palmerston North
4478

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 5pm

Telephone

+6421770685

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