Evaluation of the 'Blok 3 advices' among dairy farmers

Abstract

Veterinarians give a lot of advices. Veterinarian students that have chosen the master Farm Animals and Veterinary Public Health are learning this during the course ‘Blok 3’, where they have to analyze a dairy farm which has one or more specific problem(s). A product of the analysis is a report for the vet and farmer with evidence based advices. The main goal of this project was to evaluate to what extent the given advices have been followed by interventions of the dairy farmer. If the advices have been followed up, then the results according to the farmer were evaluated. If the given advices have not been followed up, then was evaluated why they have not been (fully) implemented by the farmer. In this study 23 farmers participated who received 482 advices in total. 181 (38%) of those advices were implemented, 103 (21%) advices have partially been followed by interventions and 206 (43%) advices have not been followed up because of different reasons. The number of advices that have been followed by interventions increased if the total number of advices increased. Mostly mentioned results were improved technical results and better animal health and/or welfare. Although the majority of the advices have been (partially) implemented, previous research demonstrated that the advisory of veterinarians can be improved. To improve advisory effective communication is important, because veterinarians are equipped with relevant information about welfare (including health) of animals and heard health management, but their communication with the farmer can be better.