The Sheep, Health, Wealth and Production (SHWAP) online conference, organised by NSA South East Region will return again this Autumn. 

For three consecutive evenings, NSA representatives will be joined by leading industry names to discuss a range of topics with the aim of arming sheep producers with the tools needed to enhance their sheep farming enterprises to be healthy, productive and profitable.

Format: Two x 30min. presentations + 30min questions/discussion each evening.

Programme as follows: 

Evening 1: 14th October

• Neonatal lamb management - What did we learn from the largest ever navel hygiene study?

  NoBACZ - presenter TBC

   

• Six new worm control rules for growing great lambs

  Nick Cotter - Learnings and insights from Nuffield Scholar

Nick is from a sheep farm in Ireland, and is currently the co-founder and CEO of Cotter Agritech, a start-up developing innovative solutions for the sheep farming sector. Their products include the Cotter Crate sheep & lamb handler and SmartWorm parasite management software. Nick previously co-founded Cotter Bros Firewood in 2011 and Cotter Organic Lamb in 2019, which direct sells the organic lamb produced on the family farm.

For his entrepreneurial efforts, Nick was awarded the 2022 Global Student Entrepreneur of The Year Award. Nick graduated from UCC with a Law and Business Degree in 2023. Through his Nuffield Scholarship, Nick has travelled to 12 countries in search of new and better ways to control internal parasites in sheep, avoid and reverse drench resistance and grow great lambs. 

Evening 2: 15th October

• TechCare - innovative technologies for small ruminant welfare management 

  Lessons learned after 5 years. Dr Claire Morgan-Davies. Reader at SRUC

Claire is a multidisciplinary scientist with a focus on extensive livestock production, particularly in mountain areas. She has been working at the Scotland’s Rural College, Hill & Mountain Research Centre, near Crianlarich in Scotland since 1999, focusing on extensive sheep farming systems. 

She has gained around 30 years’ experience working on livestock systems research, in particular extensive sheep systems. For the past 10 years, Claire's work has been centred around innovative practices and technologies for small ruminant systems, and participatory research with stakeholders. My recent projects have focused on technology uptake by small ruminant farmers in Europe, and innovative technologies for sheep welfare management. 

She has been leading several European research projects on innovative technologies for small ruminant systems (TechCare, Sm@RT), as well as being partner to several others focusing on technology and sheep systems sustainability (national: SmartSheep; ResULTS; LUNZGrass and European: SheepNet, SusSheP, EuroSheep). Claire is currently a sub-Editor of the Livestock Farming Systems - Precision Livestock Farming section in the journal Animal: An International Journal of Animal Bioscience, and has been the Vice-President of the European Federation of Animal Science Precision Livestock Farming Commission for 6 years. 

• Parasites, Numbers & Facebook

  Fiona Hutchings BVM&S, MRCVS. Ruminant Technical Manager Elanco Animal Health.

Fiona qualified from Edinburgh Vet School in 1993 and has worked in practice and in the pharma industry in the UK, Europe and the US. 

Fiona became Ruminant Technical Manager for Novartis in 2008 (Elanco acquired Novartis in 2015). Her main interests are sheep parasites and how we can practically manage them on farm for the best results. Fiona has been part of the Sustainable Control of Parasites in Sheep (SCOPS) group for over 14 years and is also chair of the National Office of Animal Health (NOAH) Environment and Sustainability Committee.

Evening 3: 16th October 

• Breed for CH4nge - Why is ewe efficiency so important?

  Dr Janet Roden, Innovis.

Dr Janet Roden has 35 years experience in the development and application of genetic improvement strategies in sheep and cattle. She now oversees the breeding programme at Innovis breeding sheep to meet the needs of commercially minded farmers focused on forage fed sheep, provides genetic support to the Welsh Sheep Genetics Programme and heads up the Breed for CH4nge research project.

• Challenge Sheep -  final title TBC

  Zoe Lloyd, Animal Health & Welfare Scientist. AHDB.

Zoe has a BSc in bio-veterinary science and a master’s by research in microbiology focusing on antimicrobial resistance and parasite carriage in ruminants from the University of Lincoln. Before joining AHDB she worked within the poultry industry as a vaccine technician. In AHDB, she manages projects within the livestock sectors with a focus on ruminant welfare, including the Challenge Sheep project.