Home Page Featured – Merlin Vet UK

Fertility Equipment from MerlinVet + Livestock Webinar

Take a look at our 2024 fertility equipment brochure.

It’s packed with the latest information on our fertility products, including the Pulsator V, the most advanced electronic bull ejaculator available, and the Ram E-JAC, a battery-operated self-contained electroejaculator designed for collecting semen from small ruminants – designed, developed, and delivered by MerlinVet.

View the brochure here.

UK-Vet Livestock Fertility Webinar Recording

On Monday 19th February 2024, MerlinVet sponsored the UK-Vet Livestock Workshop on Fertility in Bulls & Rams. This workshop explored the need for fertility testing in bulls and rams, covering practical tips for examination, with Alice Miller BVSc MRCVS as the speaker. You can view the recording here.

Numnuts® Device + Starter Kit Now Available

Home Page Featured, Merlin Vet

MerlinVet can today announce that the Numnuts® Device has come to Scotland and is available to order now. In stock and shipping now, you can order your Numnuts Device & Starter Kit today.

What is Numnuts?

Numnuts^® is a 2-in-1 device that administers an Elastrator^® ring (refer to your vet) along with a pre-calibrated dose of local anaesthetic (refer to your vet). This device makes giving fast-acting targeted pain relief for castration and tail docking of lambs easy, fast, and safe. No other device exists that allows farmers and vets to provide targeted pain relief to lambs during tail docking and castration.

The Numnuts^® Device allows farmers and vets to provide best practice without compromising on safety and efficiency. The device is robust, blood-free, and needle-safe. The modular design allows for parts to be changed to maintain good hygiene and efficient function. Numnuts^® is a Scottish designed and developed product that has proven its reliability over five lambing seasons – Numnuts has been used by thousands of pioneering sheep farmers and vets and has been used to administer over 3 Million doses in Australia and New Zealand as of January 2024.

“Numnuts is a fascinating product… I used myself first hand tailing lambs and I’m totally converted with the ease of use and very clear improvement in lamb behaviour.”

Ivan Holloway, Technical Veterinarian

Product Benefits

Revolutionary patented device combines tail docking and castration with targeted pain relief, all in one handled unit
Reduce labour time/cost
Dual Stage Injector technology prevents accidental injections
Easy priming
Accurate Dosing
No weighing or weight estimation required – simple one dose amount for all lamb sizes, for both tail & testes
Needle Safe
Simple needle changeover

What’s In The Box?

Numnuts® Device
+
Starter Kit
comprising:
1 X unique bottle mount
2 X Fluid Junctions
1 X tray of 12 needles

Durability Testing

During development, Numnuts worked with farmers to define key elements such as ergonomics, function, weight, etc. They also gave us the challenge of making it last at least 100,000 cycles. So, to meet that challenge, we built a rig to test and improve the durability.

“We marked our lambs this year with Numnuts and the improvement in our lambs’ recoveries was huge! Our lambs were on their feet, walking off and feeding from the ewes almost instantly. We will be using Numnuts next season!”

Sally Paterson, Farmer and Vet Nurse, Geelong

Please note: you must source your bottle of local anaesthetic through your own veterinary practice. The calibrated dose through the device is 1.5ml of anaesthetic.

Recommended for lambs 4 weeks and older.

The Numnuts device requires maintenance to ensure it remains reliable – please replace your needles & Fluid Junction regularly. Spares of these are readily available.

Buy here

FluroGlide: Now Available

Home Page Featured, Merlin Vet

We now have new, vivid orange FluroGlide sutures in stock from SilverGlide.

New from SilverGlide, FluroGlide™ is a super smooth, vivid orange, non-absorbable PVDF suture which provides outstanding contrast against all shades of skin, fur and hair.

Ultra High Visibility
Easy Handling
Non-absorable
VIVID ORANGE
Monofilament
Very low memory
Superior knot security (securely knots in THREE throws)
Totally inert and unwetted by blood

PVDF is a totally inert, flexible, strong-walled non absorbable monofilament suture material. It has relatively low memory and a pleasing elasticity (stretch) for a monofilament that is easy to tie and will secure a locked knot in just three throws.

Dr Trevor W. Hamilton, Director of Clyde Vet Group, explains the benefits of switching to Silverglide:

As part of a multi vet farm animal team based in Central Scotland, we have always performed quite a lot of farm animal surgery (especially cattle and sheep caesarians). We started to use polyglactin sutures rather than catgut over 15 years ago due to better clinical outcomes regarding post-operative fertility. We initially used this from a reel but when we were given the opportunity to try the Silverglide version with a swaged needle, I decided to give it a try despite being initially sceptical (as most older farm vets are). However, when I and the rest of my team tried Silverglide we were all very impressed with the ease of use, tying ability, and sharpness of needles.

The fact that it is swaged on is a godsend when in the middle of an operation at 2am, as you are not trying to thread a needle in the semi-dark! The bonus for us was that we realised that they actually worked out cheaper than our previous solution as we had less waste and no cassettes going out of date or perishing after opening. I also have a son who is a practising farm vet and he has converted the practices where he has worked to Silverglide after he brought it in for his own use and showed his colleagues the benefits. All in all, a positive advance for a practising farm vet.

Dr Trevor W. Hamilton Director, Clyde Vet Group, October 2023

Find out more about SilverGlide here

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