About Myhealthyherd

Our Aims and Objectives

Myhealthyherd is a web-based tool designed to help livestock keepers and vets improve productivity and profitability on cattle farms.
cows-feeding

Using Myhealthyherd enables vets and farmers to:

– Assess the risk of disease entry and spread

– Put in place farm-specific control and surveillance strategies

– Create herd health plans that help to measure, manage and monitor heatlh and disease

– Evaluate profit opportunities arising from health and disease problems that cause inefficient production in the herd

We believe that a ‘predict and prevent’ approach has significantly greater long-term benefits compared to the ‘test and treat’ model that is all too frequently applied in an environment where time is at a premium.

Our Story

Myhealthyherd originates from pioneering work conducted by the British Cattle Veterinary Association (BCVA) in the early 1990’s in reponse to the food industry’s requirement for health plans that demonstrated, in a written format, the procedures put in place by farmers to provide wholesome and safe food.

Health Planner ScreenshotBCVA founded a Health Planning working group, comprised of a group of committed vets, who worked alongside farmers and industry to produce a suite of PC-based health plan templates.

However, the cost of maintaining these health plans was high and in 2006 BCVA took the decision to outsource the delivery of its health planning activities; myhealthyherd was chosen as the preferred collaborator.

As time progressed, it became clear that a written health assurance plan was not enough to improve the health of the nation’s cattle, a fundamental objective of myhealthyherd. As a result, the programme’s functionality was significantly expanded to provide a suite of modules that support a pro-active approach to herd health management on both beef and dairy farms.

Myhealthyherd is now used by more than 100 vet practices and has over 4,000 registered farms in the UK alone.

Our Company

pete.orpinMyhealthyherd is a financially independent company owned by Pete Orpin MRCVS and Dick Sibley HonFRCVS, both of whom are past presidents of BCVA, health planning tutors for BCVA and have an extensive knowledge and enthusiasm for cattle health planning.

Pete is a partner of a large mixed animal practice in Leicestershire and divides his time between business consultancy, cattle preventive medicine and disease reduction. He has a particular interest in Johne’s disease management and has worked with Dick to help develop a coherent approach to Johne’s disease at a national and regional level. Pete chaired the strategic review of BCVA in 1996 and was BCVA president in 1999.

SONY DSCDick is the sole director of his Devon based mixed practice. He is a previous winner of the Dairy Industry Award in 2006, recognising his contribution to the industry, acts as a consultant for MDC / DairyCo and has worked with government to promote dairy cow welfare and the work of the dairy sector. Dick’s work with the EIG saw him chairing the Surveillance Strategy Sub-group and taking an active role within the BVD group

However, myhealthyherd would not be where it is today without the contributions of many other individuals and organisations; we are particulary grateful to NMR, where Andy Warne and Ben Bartlett have provided time, resources and guidance and Robert Dawkins has skilfully developed the programme.