Out and About

The Travels of the Moredun BioBus

The Livestock Keepers book, launched at the RHS. The BioBus at the NSA Sheep Show in Malvern.

We have been to a wide variety of different events this summer, involving collaborations with our partners and with Moredun’s mobile laboratory, the BioBus, which added a very interesting dimension to our stands and was a hit with the public and farmers alike. Many thanks to all our scientists, Board members and Regional Advisors who kindly give up their time to assist at these events.

June saw a large team from Moredun at NSA ScotSheep, Tealing, where we had a very busy day with the stand being on the schools’ circuit. We also had many discussions about a range of diseases, with ticks and tick-borne diseases at the fore.

The BioBus sat ringside at the Royal Highland Show to share knowledge about vaccines, with bus sponsors MSD Animal Health in attendance. The marquee was busy with farmers, policy makers and collaborators during Thursday and Friday, and with many children at the weekend where the focus was on education with our Disease Detectives programme.

We also officially launched our brand-new coffee table book, ‘Livestock Keepers’, at the show to raise funds to support the livestock industry. You can purchase your own copy via our online shop at: https://moredun.org.uk/ shop/books/livestock-keepers.

In July, the BioBus headed south to attend the NSA Sheep Show in Malvern, forming part of a large stand in Avon Hall. We featured our work on parasites, running a demo with SCOPs (Sustainable Control of Parasites in Sheep) on Precision Sheep Farming, and participated in NSA’s Grassland Trail and the RoSA (Register of Sheep Advisers) trail for CPD. We hosted NSA CEO Phil Stocker with a group from DEFRA, including the Directors of Future Farming and Pathways to Health.

Parasitologists on tour

We were finally let loose with the BioBus earlier in the summer to take part in an on-farm event in Cumbria. It was a joint effort with Elanco and AHDB, talking about sustainable worming practices. Despite the warm, sunny weather, more than 40 local farmers came along – testament to the level of interest surrounding this important topic! We kicked things off in the shed, talking about worm control with a lively question and answer session. After lunch, we opened the BioBus for faecal egg count demonstrations and practical tips on how, why and when to test flocks and herds.

The BioBus appeared on-farm in Cumbria.

Keep an eye out and pop in to say hello if you see the BioBus visiting your area (it’s quite hard to miss!), we are always happy to chat about animal health…especially all things wormy!

Royal Highland Show

Nine horses and ponies came forward for our Survivors Parade at the Royal Highland Show. Seven of them were survivors – giant Clydesdale, Scottie, who led the parade, sport horses Bart and Henry, cob Cindy, riding school superstar Nugget, and cute ponies Ollie and Dainty. Two further horses, Wini and Image, the golden oldies, attended in memory of their young field companion Tommy, who lost his life to acute grass sickness.

Professor Lee Innes joined the Royal Highland Show TV commentary box to explain more about the disease and the exciting new research projects, including the EGS Biobank, generously supported by the British Horse Society.

You can watch the RHS TV interview with Professor Lee Innes of The Moredun Foundation and some footage of the parade at: https://bit.ly/3Sna3O6

We were delighted to be joined by some very special EGS VIPs to present the rosettes: Jen McLellan of the The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies at the University of Edinburgh, who helped nurse some of the participants back to health, Melody Ashcroft of Heald Town Highland Pony Stud, who takes the photos for our annual fundraising calendar, and Jane Hutcheon of Norbrook GB.

Huge thanks to the Royal Highland Show for giving us the great honour of showcasing our survivors in the main arena, in particular Anne Logan, Chairman of the Equine Grass Sickness Fund.

Thanks are also due to Andi Neilson who created a wonderful script to tell the story of each individual survivor, to Chloe Nielson for taking the images, and to Yvonne Maclean whose sashes made them look simply fabulous

EGSF were present at the Turriff Show. The EGSF stand at Blair International Horse Trials.

– all of which you can read and see by visiting the Equine Grass Sickness Fund website: https://bit.ly/3Sc1w0y

Turriff Show

Partners in the Equine Grass Sickness (EGS) project, Norvite, invited us to attend Turriff Show at the end of July as part of their stand and to meet HRH the Princess Royal. HRH was very knowledgeable and supportive of this project, which is being led by Moredun.

We took a stand to the EGS Ross-shire Show on 6th August to support fundraising for the EGS project and raise awareness of the biobank, with local vets invited to meet us to discuss the project.

Blair International Horse Trials

The EGS Fund was selected to be one of the chosen charities at Blair International Horse Trials, with EGS researchers setting up the BioBus and a stand there for the four days (25th-28th August). This was a great opportunity for fundraising and for PR.

The EGS Fund was honoured to have been chosen as the Official Charity 2022 for Blair International Horse Trials in August. The sun shone all week, giving our research team the perfect opportunity to showcase their work in the BioBus out on the cross-country course, with branded jumps to promote our cause.

Back at the trade stand beside the main arena, our brand-new anatomical horse, kindly donated by Norbrook, proved an excellent talking point, with over two hundred entries to our competition to name the horse and win £100 Equikro Equestrian vouchers. Jane Hutcheon of Norbrook had the difficult task of choosing the name, settling on Norbrook Gut Feeling, or Norris to his friends. He now takes pride of place in the Atrium at Moredun.

We were supported by an army of volunteers who helped provide information and advice on grass sickness as well as selling fundraising merchandise and doing bucket collections.

Three grass sickness survivors lined up for our Survivor’s Parade and we were joined by Helene Mauchlen of the British Horse Society, who have generously funded the EGS Biobank.

The Moredun-branded jump looking the part.