Most farmers know lameness is a problem. Far fewer know what it's actually costing them, and the 2026 Stride survey suggests that gap is exactly what's holding the industry back.

Andrew and Sarah are joined by Matt Dobbs, Vet & CEO of HerdVision, and Ian Lindsay, Business Development Director at LKL Services Ltd, to unpack the results of the newly released Stride survey on UK dairy mobility. With 173 producers responding on behalf of around 55,000 cows, the data lays out where the industry stands: the average cost of a case of lameness is around £330, yet nearly one in five farmers surveyed believed it was costing them under £100. Matt explains why lameness is a hidden cost in a way mastitis rarely is, and what that means for how seriously it gets taken on farm.

Time comes out as the single biggest barrier stopping farms acting, but it's far from the only one. Ian draws a memorable comparison between a modern high-yielding Holstein and a Formula One car: however good the team around her, none of it matters if the tyres, in this case the feet, aren't right. Training, investment, and a lack of clear on-farm responsibility for mobility all feature heavily too, and Matt makes the case for farms appointing someone with the same ownership over mobility that a herd might give a dedicated youngstock manager.

Stride is taking these findings on the road this autumn, with confirmed roadshow events in Somerset on Wednesday 14th October and Staffordshire on Wednesday 28th October, both run in association with the National Association of Cattle Foot Trimmers (NACFT - nacft.co.uk). Search www.stridemobility.co.uk for full details.

This episode was recorded in July 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording. Please note this transcript was generated using AI transcription software. Despite best efforts to ensure accuracy, there may be some errors in the final piece.

What's the one thing standing between your farm and a proper mobility action plan? Let us know, and if you enjoyed this episode, please share it, subscribe, and leave us a review.

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd . You can also email us at [email protected].

This conversation was recorded back in December 2025 and sat on for the best part of a year, with Andrew and Sarah Bolt asked to hold it until the findings could be formally released. The wait was worth it: a GB-wide study of five thousand dairy herds found a quarter tested positive for bovine TB at least once during 2023, including a fifth of herds that were officially TB-free at the time and trading with no restrictions in place.

The findings come from Rachel Hayton, Research Lead at Synergy Farm Health in the South West of England, recorded alongside Sarah Tomlinson, Lead Veterinary Science Expert at AHDB and the TB Advisory Service (TBAS). Rachel's team used the Enferplex test, a serological blood and milk test made by Enfer Group, applied for the first time at bulk milk level across whole herds, testing around five thousand herds across England, Wales and Scotland three times through 2023, in partnership with Sure Farm Ltd, National Milk Records (NMR), the UK Agri-Tech Centre and SRUC, with funding from Innovate UK.

The detail that stood out to Rachel was the overlap: 20% of herds with no restriction history in 2023, believing themselves clear, tested Enferplex positive. Sarah Tomlinson said this confirms what vets have long suspected: that officially TB-free status after two clear skin tests doesn't mean infection-free, and that this is exactly how the disease moves into new herds through trade. Both guests want to see infected animals managed out on a realistic timescale rather than removed immediately, mirroring how Johne's disease is already handled.

Since this conversation was recorded, England's bovine TB strategy refresh has been published, setting out exactly this shift. Hear what it actually changes in this week's other episode, TB Strategy Refresh: What Really Changes for You?

Additional Help and Resources

For more information on Bovine TB, please see the below links to associated websites:

•      TBAS: https://www.tbas.org.uk/

•      TB Hub: https://tbhub.co.uk/

•      TB Free England: https://www.tbfreeengland.co.uk/

•      ibTB: https://www.ibtb.co.uk/

•      Defra TB website: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bovine-tb

•      Animal & Plant Health Agency, Recent TB Instruction Updates: http://apha.defra.gov.uk/vet-gateway/TB/index.htm

•      Official Veterinarian (OV) Conference: https://officialvet.com

Help & Support

If you, or any of the farm team, are concerned about how dealing with bTB is impacting your mental health, help is available via several organisations including R.A.B.I, Yellow Wellies, FCN and YANA. You are not alone. For help, support, additional information or for someone to just have a chat with please visit the links below:

•      Online mental wellbeing service – RABI: www.rabi.org.uk/how-we-help/mental-wellbeing

•      www.farmwell.org.uk

•      Mind Your Head – YellowWellies.org: www.yellowwellies.org/mind-your-head

•      YANA: You Are Not Alone – Rural Mental Health Support: www.yanahelp.org

•      www.fcn.org.uk

•      www.thefarminglifecentre.org.uk

This episode was recorded in December 2025, and all information was correct at the time of recording. Please note this transcript was generated using AI transcription software. Despite best efforts to ensure accuracy, there may be some errors in the final piece.

If a bulk milk test could tell you your herd's TB status without the stress of a skin test, would you want to know?

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it, subscribe, and leave us a review.

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd . You can also email us at [email protected].

Andrew fed England's new fifty-five-page bovine TB strategy into AI and got nine bullet points back — with no way of knowing whether any of them were actually right. So he called Sarah Tomlinson, Lead Veterinary Science Expert at AHDB and the TB Advisory Service (TBAS), instead.

Sarah Tomlinson chaired one of the working groups behind the strategy, published in June 2026 with input from over a hundred farmers, vets and scientists — a marked shift from the government-led vision behind the original twenty-five-year eradication strategy in 2013/14. The headline that's grabbed attention is cattle vaccination by 2030, but Sarah Tomlinson was clear it's a smaller part of the strategy than the coverage suggests: field trials are largely complete, and the delay comes down to paperwork, trade rules and getting the DIVA test validated for distinguishing vaccinated from infected animals. Badger culling is ending in favour of vaccination, building on pilots like the one in East Sussex, delivered by local farmers and vets.

The change most likely to affect farmers directly is around ancillary testing. Under current rules, a positive animal must be culled within ten working days, triggering movement restrictions and sixty-day testing — which is exactly why farmers haven't wanted more sensitive tests run on their own herds. The strategy proposes letting officially TB-free farmers use these tests without triggering any of that, mirroring how the industry already manages Johne's disease. Herd risk scores will also be shared directly with farmers for the first time, and a new industry-government delivery board will decide priorities and timelines.

Sarah Tomlinson named local ownership as the real theme running through the strategy — government can't deliver this alone, and farmers and vets are already good at managing infectious disease without being told how. She also shared a message from a farmer she'd supported through TBAS that made the human cost of TB breakdowns impossible to ignore alongside the policy detail. The strategy also references Enferplex, the bulk milk test at the centre of a major new GB-wide study — hear the full findings in this week's other episode, Revolutionising TB Testing: Is Bulk Milk the Key?

Additional Help and Resources

For more information on Bovine TB, please see the below links to associated websites:

•      TBAS: https://www.tbas.org.uk/

•      TB Hub: https://tbhub.co.uk/

•      TB Free England: https://www.tbfreeengland.co.uk/

•      ibTB: https://www.ibtb.co.uk/

•      Defra TB website: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bovine-tb

•      Animal & Plant Health Agency, Recent TB Instruction Updates: http://apha.defra.gov.uk/vet-gateway/TB/index.htm

•      Official Veterinarian (OV) Conference: https://officialvet.com

Help & Support

If you, or any of the farm team, are concerned about how dealing with bTB is impacting your mental health, help is available via several organisations including R.A.B.I, Yellow Wellies, FCN and YANA. You are not alone. For help, support, additional information or for someone to just have a chat with please visit the links below:

•      Online mental wellbeing service – RABI: www.rabi.org.uk/how-we-help/mental-wellbeing

•      www.farmwell.org.uk

•      Mind Your Head – YellowWellies.org: www.yellowwellies.org/mind-your-head

•      YANA: You Are Not Alone – Rural Mental Health Support: www.yanahelp.org

•      www.fcn.org.uk

•      www.thefarminglifecentre.org.uk

This episode was recorded in July 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording. Please note this transcript was generated using AI transcription software. Despite best efforts to ensure accuracy, there may be some errors in the final piece.

Have you had a chance to read the strategy refresh yet, or are you waiting to hear what it means in practice first?

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it, subscribe, and leave us a review.

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd . You can also email us at [email protected].

Calf nutrition has come a long way since we last covered this topic — and in this episode, we catch up with two of Trouw Nutrition's own experts to find out just how far. Georgina Thomas, Young Animal Feed Technical Sales Manager, and Dr Juliette Wilms, a ruminant researcher who did her PhD on fat inclusion in calf milk replacer, join us to talk through the shift from growth-focused feeding to what they call resilience-focused nutrition. We get into why eight litres a day is now considered moderate rather than generous, what a calf would actually drink if left on its dam, and why feeding more only works if you're feeding the right thing.

The heart of the conversation is fat — specifically the short and medium-chain fatty acids that occur naturally in whole milk but have historically been almost impossible to replicate in a calf milk replacer. Juliette explains the science behind restoring these, and why the payoff shows up most clearly in gut and respiratory health, not just growth rates. We also get into the real cost of scours and pneumonia in the calf shed, what Trouw's own research trial found when comparing four litres against eight, and why getting the fat-to-lactose balance right matters just as much as how much you're feeding.

We round things out with a plain-English explanation of osmolality, why whole milk and calf milk replacer each have their place depending on your situation, and where Trouw's research is heading next — including some early findings on dairy beef calves that could reshape how a growing share of the industry rears its animals. As always, it comes back to the basics: get your colostrum, hygiene, and stockmanship right first, then use nutrition to build calves that can cope with whatever a real working farm throws at them.

This episode was recorded in July 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording. Please note this transcript was generated using AI transcription software — despite best efforts to ensure accuracy, there may be some errors in the final piece. 

What's your own take on feeding more milk versus feeding it right? Share your experience with us, and if you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe and leave a review.

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd . You can also email us at [email protected].

Published abattoir research found over 40% of cull cows had toxic levels of copper in their livers. Pull back to elevated concentrations and Annie Williams, independent mineral nutrition consultant at Mineral Advice Ltd, suggests more than half of UK dairy cows may be above the threshold — potentially suppressing performance in ways that are almost impossible to distinguish from deficiency. In this conversation, we examine why copper excess is a far more widespread problem than most farmers and advisers currently recognise, and what can realistically be done about it.

The conversation covers the limits of blood testing, why liver biopsy is the only reliable measure of copper status, and how to conduct a proper mineral audit that accounts for every copper input across an animal's lifetime — including concentrates, forages, water, injectables, drenches, and boluses. Annie explains the role of antagonists, why grass-based systems carry higher risk than housed TMR, what palm kernel extract means for formulation, and how copper accumulated in the calf shed follows a heifer right into the milking herd.

The area where knowledge is thinnest — and where Annie expects the most significant development — is the pre-ruminant calf. Adult cattle absorb less than 10% of dietary copper; a pre-ruminant calf bypasses the rumen entirely and absorbs somewhere between 60 and 80%. Current guidance recommends 5 mg/kg dry matter in calf milk replacer, five times what whole milk naturally contains, and nobody is entirely sure where that figure originated. Research underway at Harper Adams, led by PhD student Amy Marsh, is trying to establish what the correct formulation targets should be. If you rear your own calves in the UK or Ireland and are willing to supply survey data and have products sampled, the project would welcome your involvement — find out more at www.mineral-advice.com.

This episode was recorded in June 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording.  Please note this transcript was generated using AI transcription software — despite best efforts to ensure accuracy, there may be some errors in the final piece. 

Are you confident your current mineral programme accounts for the full lifetime copper picture — from calf milk replacer through to the milking herd? Share this episode with someone who might find it useful, and if you enjoy ChewintheCud Podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you listen.

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd . You can also email us at [email protected].

The transition period is the twenty-one days either side of calving. Get it right and the rest of the lactation follows. Get it wrong and you could spend the next ten months firefighting. To kick off Year Five, we're joined by Vicky Ham, Ruminant Technical Services Manager, Europe for Arm & Hammer Animal Nutrition, to talk about DCAB — what it actually is, why it still strikes fear into people who should know better, and why the research keeps pointing in the same direction. The work goes back to Dr Elliot Block in the mid-1980s and is reinforced by meta-analyses from J.E.P. Santos: cows fed a negative DCAB diet calve with better calcium status, suffer fewer transition diseases, and eat more dry matter post-calving. The evidence is there. The question is why more people aren't using it.

We cover the basics of acidification and how urine pH testing tells you whether cows are actually where they need to be — and why there is no such thing as a partial DCAB diet. You are either acidified or you are not. On the practical side we talk forage mineral analysis, straw potassium surprises in drought years, protein source selection, palatability, mixing, and why consistency is everything. We also cover what happens post-calving, stocking density, feed space, and why cows need to come off the negative DCAB ration the moment they calve.

We also get into newer thinking on inflammation — the emerging evidence that hypocalcaemia may be less about calcium deficiency and more about an activated immune system demanding calcium and glucose at the expense of everything else. Studies suggest close to sixty per cent of cows at calving show inflammation with no clinical signs whatsoever. Managing that inflammatory load is not a separate conversation from transition nutrition. It is the same conversation. 

This episode was recorded in June 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording.  Please note this transcript was generated using AI transcription software — despite best efforts to ensure accuracy, there may be some errors in the final piece. 

Are you running a DCAB diet, and if not, what's holding you back? We'd love to hear from you. Please share, subscribe, and leave us a review — it helps more dairy farmers find us.

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd . You can also email us at [email protected].

Herbal leys can feel like a contradiction: you pay for a carefully chosen seed mix and then it refuses to look the same from month to month. That’s exactly why we wanted a proper, practical conversation about multi-species swards, not the brochure version. Recorded live with a panel of specialists, we dig into what actually happens in the field and how to manage herbal leys for UK dairy systems when the weather turns extreme and the rotation plan stops behaving.

We start with trial insights from Dr Jo Matthews on how different species contribute across the season, why plantain and chicory peak at different times, and what resilience really means when drought hits. We also get into the detail that gets missed: tannins from birdsfoot trefoil, mineral profiles in individual species, and why “more species” only helps if something can persist under your grazing or cutting pressure. If you care about soil health, drought resilience, livestock health and cutting purchased fertiliser, this is the kind of data-led context that helps you choose with confidence.

Then Becci Shrimpton brings the agronomy reality check: soil testing before seed choice, pH and P and K targets, seedbed and drilling depth for tiny seeds, and why weed control is mostly a pre-sowing job because broadleaf sprays can wipe out the mix. Ben Richards rounds it out with a farmer’s view from Cornwall, running a 100% forage, organic, once a day milking herd on herbal leys, explaining grazing covers, residuals, rotation length and why he avoids hammering the sward.

 This podcast was recorded in front of an audience, and once our guests had made their initial presentations, they then took questions directly from those in attendance, asking real questions relevant to farms today!  

This was recorded in February 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording.  

If this sparks ideas, share the episode with a farming mate, subscribe, and leave us a review so more people can find ChewintheCud. What’s the one species you would add to your next herbal ley mix?

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd . You can also email us at [email protected].

If your robot relies on cake to keep cows moving, ask yourself a blunt question: what happens the day the pellet system breaks? That single point of failure is one of the reasons we wanted this conversation, because Kelli Hutchings and Matt Strickland have gone the other way and proven a “cake-free robot” approach can work on a commercial dairy.

Kelli is a feed and herd management adviser who found herself deep in the world of DeLaval VMS after helping launch large robotic sites across North America. Matt is a fourth-generation dairy farmer in Merced, California, running eight robots milking around 500 cows in a guided flow barn, alongside a larger conventional herd. Together, they explain why feeding concentrate in the robot can be a costly habit, how cows learn expectations fast, and why cow behaviour and facility design matter as much as any dashboard.

We get practical about the change process: starting new heifers with no pellets, weaning conditioned cows slowly, and building a shortlist of KPIs that protect you from rumours and knee-jerk decisions. We talk visits, fetch lists, box time, incompletes, milk components, butterfat, and the commercial headline of income over feed costs. You will also hear the limitations, including why guided or modified guided flow is currently the best fit and why forage quality and TMR palatability are non-negotiable.

If you manage robotic milking, advise UK dairy farms, or are planning a robot investment, this is a rare chance to rethink concentrate strategy with real numbers and honest caveats. 

This was recorded in December 2025, and all information was correct at the time of recording.  

Subscribe for more practical dairy conversations, share this with someone considering robots, and leave us a review so more farmers can find the show. 

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd . You can also email us at [email protected].

AI is creeping into dairy whether we call it that or not, and most of the noise you hear is either hype or horror stories. So, we brought the conversation into the room with our first live event at the UK Agri-Tech Centre and asked a more useful question: what can artificial intelligence and machine learning genuinely do for a working dairy farm today, and where do the risks begin?

We’re joined by Chris Knight from Agribot, Ian Garner from Antler Bio, and Mike Jones from the UK Agri-Tech Centre. Chris pulls the curtain back on the history of AI, why the core ideas are older than most people think, and why large language models feel revolutionary mainly because we can talk to them. Ian shares how AI can speed up development and knowledge work without becoming a source of truth, including building science-grounded recommendations with expert validation to avoid confident nonsense and hallucinated references.

Mike brings it back to the coalface with tools being tested on real farms: earlier lameness detection, consistent body condition scoring, sensors that flag cows needing attention, methane monitoring, and even birdsong analysis for biodiversity benchmarking. Along the way we tackle accuracy versus consistency, predictive tools, data integration across too many apps, trust and privacy, and the awkward question of who really owns farm data.

This podcast was recorded in front of an audience, and once our guests had made their initial presentations, they then took questions directly from those in attendance, asking real questions relevant to farms today! 

This was recorded in February 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording. 

Subscribe for more practical UK dairy conversations, share this with a mate who’s sceptical about AI, and leave us a review if you want more live panels like this.

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd . You can also email us at [email protected].

Sunburn feels like an inconvenience until you connect it to the cancer statistics. Melanoma is the fifth most common cancer in the UK, and Susanna Daniels, CEO of Melanoma Focus, joins us to explain why a “just a mole” mindset is risky, and why early action can be life-saving. We talk plainly about what melanoma is, how UV damage builds up over time, and why noticing a new or changing mole, or something that simply looks odd is the moment to contact your GP.

We also bring it back to farm life. Outdoor work in agriculture and horticulture means higher exposure, and Susanna shares survey findings showing sunburn is far more common in the sector than in the general public. We dig into the culture piece too, especially why men often skip sunscreen, and how employers can treat sun protection as a health and safety control by providing sunscreen and making reapplication normal on busy days.

You’ll come away with practical guidance you can use straight away: the expanded Slip Slop Slap message (plus shade and sunglasses), how to use the UV index (protect when it is 3 or above), what “broad spectrum” really means, and what to look for on the bottle (SPF 30+ and a high UVA star rating). We also tackle vitamin D without turning sun exposure into a false excuse, and we finish with a clear reminder that nearly nine in ten melanomas are preventable.

Download and share Melanoma Focus' agricultural and horticulture assets:

Agricultural communications Toolkit

This was recorded in January 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording.

Subscribe for more UK dairy and farming conversations, share this with someone who works outdoors, and leave us a review so more people hear the message.

Send us Fan Mail

For more information about our podcast visit www.chewinthecud.com/podcast or follow us on Instagram @chewinthecudpodcast, or on Facebook and LinkedIn as ChewintheCud Ltd . You can also email us at [email protected].