large animal veterinary technicians programme
Tuesday 23 June 2026
| 7am | Registration opens | Level 3 |
| 8am | Welcome | Rob Mills (NZVA President) | Theatre A Level 5 |
| 8.10am | Plenary: Learning through times of disruption: navigating AI | Sir Ashley Bloomfield | Theatre A Level 5 |
| 9am | Morning tea | Exhibition Hall Level 3 |
| 9.30am | Practical alpaca nutrition | Jane Vaughan This lecture will provide some rules-of-thumb to assist with assessing alpaca nutrition in individuals and herds. Water, energy, protein and fiber requirements will be discussed, as well as vitamin D and selenium supplementation. Shared talk with Lifestyle Block stream | Room 507 & 508 Level 5 |
| 10.30am | Best practice recommendations for disbudding dairy goat kids | Melissa Hempstead This presentation will synthesise current research and best-practice guidance on disbudding goat kids, with a focus on improving animal welfare and procedural outcomes in clinical and on-farm settings. Topics include the rationale for disbudding, relevant legislation and training considerations, kid-specific factors affecting pain and success (including age and sex), and equipment selection. Evidence-based recommendations will be discussed for iron application timing and associated risks of brain injury, horn regrowth and scur formation, wound healing, alternative disbudding approaches, and practical pain-mitigation strategies. Shared talk with Lifestyle Block stream | Room 507 & 508 Level 5 |
| 11.30am | Practical interpretation of fertility focus reports | Laura Beasley | Room 513 Level 5 |
| 12pm | Lunch | Exhibition Hall Level 3 |
| 1pm | Panel discussion: The future of LAVTs in Aotearoa | To be confirmed | Room 513 Level 5 |
| 1.50pm | Traumatic events on job. Sharing our experiences keeps others safer | Sarah Hurst While we always do our best to mitigate risks, working with large animals and machinery is a high-risk area. Most of the risks are predictable, and we can put measures in place to mitigate them. But you don't know what you don't know until you know it! I have not been without hairy moments. This chat is about the hairiest moment I have had. What happened? Why did it happen? What have the long-term implications been? I was lucky, and got away with a bad hair cut and very minor injury. Others have come off far worse in similar events. I'd like to share my experience in the hope it encourages others to share their stories so we can all be part of improving awareness around the Health and Safety of our on-farm teams, help to prevent others from going through traumatic experiences, and shed some light on how these experiences can impact us down the track. | Room 513 Level 5 |
| 2.15pm | Adapting to change | Tennielle Ellingham | Room 513 Level 5 |
| 2.40pm | Sheep body condition scoring – why, how, and when | Sara Sutherland Overview of the single most important thing farmers can do to improve sheep production. | Room 513 Level 5 |
| 3pm | Afternoon tea | Exhibition Hall Level 3 |
| 3.30pm | Sheep parasite workshop | Ginny Dodunski | Room 513 Level 5 |
| 5.30pm | Happy hour | Exhibition Hall Level 3 |
| 7pm | NZVA Special Interest Branch Dinners and NZVNA Dinner |
Wednesday 24 June 2026
| 7am | Registration opens | Level 3 |
| 8am | Plenary: Thriving and striving at work - the ultimate win win |
Charlotte Cantley | Theatre A Level 5 |
| 8.45am | NZVA AGM | Theatre A Level 5 |
| 9.30am | Morning tea | Exhibition Hall Level 3 |
| 10am | Making LSBs profitable | Laura Schwerdtfeger Shared talk with Lifestyle Block stream | Room 507 & 508 Level 5 |
| 10.30am | Animal health plans | Laura Schwerdtfeger Practical, case-based session equipping participants to confidently interpret Fertility Focus Reports—concise, standardized summaries of dairy herd reproductive performance. Attendees learn to understand KPI calculations and their links to farm management, benchmark against industry targets, and diagnose data-quality issues. The session highlights common pitfalls and practical tricks to maximize report value, enabling LAVTs to explain results to farmers and support veterinarians in targeted, season-to-season reproductive improvement plans across herds. Shared talk with Lifestyle Block stream | Room 507 & 508 Level 5 |
| 11.10am | Running LSB as a profitable business | Ashleigh Taylor Shared talk with Lifestyle Block stream | Room 507 & 508 Level 5 |
| 11.45am | Disasters in the trenches | VPIS Shared talk with Lifestyle Block and Veterinary Nursing - Equine streams | Room 507 & 508 Level 5 |
| 12.30pm | Lunch | Exhibition Hall Level 3 |
| 1.30pm | Greenfeed and Vet Techs: measuring, managing, making change | Stacey
Brew Greenfeed machines are becoming more common in research with ruminants. This talk will discuss what they are, how we use them, and cow interaction and training. Operational use of them is commonly done by Technicians, and we play a big part in the success of data collection and the experience for the animal. | Room 513 Level 5 |
| 1.50pm | Leptospirosis - keeping ourselves and whānau safe | Jackie Benschop In Aotearoa leptospirosis patients include large animal veterinary technicians. Initially patients are febrile with severe headache and exhaustion. Within a week any organ system can be impacted and over half of notified cases are hospitalised for an average of four nights. Leptospirosis has chronic sequelae, including persistent fatigue and mental health impacts. I will share our new research updates on leptospirosis in Aotearoa and how to keep your self safe. | Room 513 Level 5 |
| 2.20pm | The New Zealand cattle tick: biology and research | Luis Carvalho This presentation will provide an overview of Haemaphysalis longicornis, the New Zealand cattle tick, including its life cycle, distribution, impact on livestock health and productivity, and current management approaches. I will then outline ongoing research at BSI–AgResearch examining tick population genetics, the presence of tick-borne pathogens, and innovative control strategies. | Room 513 Level 5 |
| 2.45pm | Behaviour identification in farmed red deer (Cervus Elaphus) using
wearable activity collars | Bryan Thompson Custom-built wearable activity collars were developed and validated to identify and range of behaviours in farmed red deer. Accelerometer data were paired with ~11,000 observed behavioural records collected over five days. Simple, interpretable decision-tree classifiers using a single feature and temporal smoothing achieved strong accuracy across key behaviour categories, including grazing/ruminating, standing/lying, and head position. The results show wearable sensors can reliably monitor deer behaviour, supporting their use in welfare and production research on farm. Shared talk with Sheep, Beef Cattle and Deer stream | Room 513 Level 5 |
| 3.10pm | Cow wearables, Agri Tech and the Vet Tech | Krispin Kannan | Room 513 Level 5 |
| 3.30pm | Afternoon tea | Exhibition Hall Level 3 |
| 4pm | From fungus to faeces: new insights into facial eczema | Cara Brosnahan Facial eczema is a major welfare and productivity challenge for New Zealand livestock. The Eliminating Facial Eczema Impacts programme is investing in practical, farmer focused solutions. The disease is caused by a toxin producing fungus that is spreading into new regions as the climate warms. A three-year epidemiological study has just been completed, showing FE spores are consistently found as far south as Otago. Through research, diagnostics, risk mapping, and new tools, the programme aims to support farmers, vets, and rural professionals to better manage FE and reduce its long term impacts. Shared talk with Sheep, Beef Cattle and Deer stream | Room 503 Level 5 |
| 4.30pm | Spore counting methods. How, when and why? | Sarah Hurst We have many diagnostic tools at our disposal for evaluating the the potential risk of Facial Eczema and the damage being caused by the sporidesmin toxin when ruminants ingest the Pithomyces chartarum Fungus. I'd like to take some time to remind our technicians of the importance of timing with this disease, how to use which diagnostics and when. How can we best support or clinics, vets and farmers to add value for each stakeholder while also supporting and helping to improve the welfare of the animals we work so closely with? Shared talk with Sheep, Beef Cattle and Deer stream | Room 503 Level 5 |
| 4.55pm | FE what’s the deal anyway? | Emma Cuttance Shared talk with Sheep, Beef Cattle and Deer stream | Room 503 Level 5 |
| 5.45pm | NZVA Awards | Theatre A Level 5 |
| 6.30pm | Networking dinner | Exhibition Hall Level 3 |
| Combined session with another stream. |
This programme was correct at the time of publication. Speakers and titles are subject to change. |