Farm Manager for Castlepoint station Stu Neal has had a long association with Vet LSD. Stu was closely involved in the development of the product with Peter Anderson while farming in the Marlborough region. He had noticed a problem with lamb survivability for no apparent reason.
“Peter advised me to try this product, and after reluctantly putting the ewes through drenching at that time of the year (pre-lambing), I noticed a difference that lambing, the problem was fixed very quickly.”
Since moving to the North Island and managing Castlepoint, Stu was aware of an Iodine deficiency on the property and uses Vet LSD to help correct that.
“I use it knowing full well it has a positive effect on lamb survivability. We had a problem with around 20% losses from birth to tailing, that would be well down under 15% now after using VetLSD, and a number of those seasons have been far from favourable.”
Typically he will administer an iodine supplement at mating, and then combine Vet LSD with drench two weeks prior to lambing.
“We know we are getting the vitamin E and Iodine into the lambs at birth and keeping the levels correct with it.”
Five years on VetLSD is “just part of the programme here” at Castlepoint.
“It is a very easy product to use, you just mix it up with your drench or water, and you have 30 days to use it once it’s mixed.”
