Gamekeeper's Go-To: Simplifying Gamebird Health with Digiflock

Maintaining elevated levels of health and welfare in gamebirds is the top priority for gamekeepers throughout the breeding and rearing season, with many hours spent observing the birds, noticing subtle signs of disease, and intervening at the earliest opportunity to avoid ever-impending disasters. The time and financial input that fuels this level of commitment is vast, and so it makes sense to ensure that you are getting the most from your investment.

Digiflock is offered exclusively by Poultry Health Services and is an online system providing a home for all of your veterinary paperwork. The perfect filing solution, our clever data management and reporting system houses post mortem reports, prescriptions, lab results and certificates in a single location. It is easily accessible from anywhere once connected to a data or internet source and allows you to instantly view historic information, dating back to the start of your account. This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a year and avoids hard copies of important paperwork being lost during the thick of the season.

When a PHS (Poultry Health Services) vet does clinical work, this is recorded on the client’s personal Digiflock account, usually on the same day. Post mortem examinations or site visits are logged in detail, describing all findings, recommendations and treatments provided. This formal record of all veterinary intervention and advice can help when investigating the origins and trends of disease, which can be an advantage in avoiding losses and enhancing production. Furthermore, records of clear health checks can be forwarded to those buying chicks or poults, reassuring them that your birds are healthy.

Any medications prescribed at the time of the visit or post mortem are linked to the original recording in the form of a digital prescription, and the full report is emailed to the client upon completion. Permission can also be granted for reports to be shared directly with business owners, site managers and/or gamekeepers at the point of finalisation, saving you the fuss of forwarding them on.

In addition to prescribing in-house medications, feed script requests can be processed and filled quickly via the Digiflock prescription service. Our dedicated support team pick up feed script requests within minutes of receiving an email from the feed mill, and once flock details have been directly confirmed with you a digital prescription is created. The vet responsible for the site is notified and can review and approve the prescription before emailing it to both you and the feed mill through Digiflock. This process allows a competitively fast turnaround, with most feed script requests handled in under 30 minutes.

This method of recording also allows medicine use to be easily monitored. An accurate medicine record and antibiotic usage figures are a key requirement of assurance schemes such as Trusted Game, with heavy emphasis being placed on demonstrating responsible antimicrobial usage and providing assurance that drug residue levels are within safe limits for human consumption. Digiflock users can locate and share their medication prescriptions and antibiotic usage levels with ease, taking the stress out of both audit preparation and the scheme accreditation process.

A full range of gamebird testing, including Mycoplasma PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), salmonella testing and worm egg counts, is offered via our Newbridge Scientific Laboratories, the full results of which are available via Digiflock. As soon as the lab team have the results, they are uploaded to the Digiflock system, are reviewed and commented on by a vet and are reported to you via email within hours; this service is automatically available 24/7 to all PHS clients.

This level of comfortable organisation can remove a lot of stress from an already demanding time, lightening your load and allowing you to focus on the most important part - the birds themselves.

For more information on Digiflock or to explore our services, please contact your local PHS practice.