Shropshire: Healthy starts to entering the milking herd

Join us at Bentley Ford Farm for an informative event focused on optimising efficiency in dairy heifer rearing, helping ensure youngstock enter the milking herd ready to achieve their full potential.

We’ll explore the key factors that influence growth, health, fertility and lifetime performance, with practical insights to support better decision-making at every stage of rearing.

The goal is simple: to help farmers rear dairy heifers that not only hit productivity targets, but go on to enjoy long, healthy and profitable careers in the herd.

At this event, we'll review youngstock performance and facilities at Bentley Ford Farm with youngstock specialist Ginny Sherwin and farm vet James Marsden.

We will cover

• Utilising on-farm data to determine maximum performance
• Management and environmental factors that ensure success
• Youngstock housing and how this can affect your heifers

A light lunch and refreshments will be provided.

Speaker profiles

Ginny Sherwin

Ginny Sherwin graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2011 before completing a farm animal internship at the Royal Veterinary College and moving into private practice.

She later undertook a dairy herd health residency at the University of Nottingham, becoming a European Specialist in Bovine Health Management in 2017.

Alongside starting a lecturing role in 2018, she completed a PhD in 2020, investigating the ecology of Streptococcus uberis.

She is now a Clinical Associate Professor in Farm Animal Medicine at the University of Nottingham, with research focused on practical, evidence-based approaches to improving youngstock health and performance.

James Marsden is a director and dedicated farm animal vet who has specialised in herd health, fertility, and production efficiency for nearly two decades.

James Marsden

After graduating from Bristol in 2006, he moved from mixed practice into farm-focused work, joining the team that later became Shropshire Farm Vets.

He completed a Diploma in Bovine Reproduction at the University of Liverpool in 2010, strengthening his expertise in optimising dairy and beef systems, an area he continues to be passionate about, alongside improving animal welfare and overall farm profitability.