FARMWATER - Key Persons
Alan qualified from the Royal Dick School of Veterinary Medicine in Edinburgh in 1988 and first joined St David's Veterinary Group as a general farm practice vet before taking a partnership in the St David's farm and equine business in 1992. This was followed by the formation of St David's Poultry Team in 1995 alongside fellow FarmWater director, Richard Turner.
In 2001, Alan became more involved in the intensive poultry department of St David's and realised the value of data, remote diagnostics and preventive medicine.
Alan has extensive experience in many areas of poultry production undertaking research in the layer sector with brachyspira identification and treatment and with the development of autogenous vaccines.
Delivering proactive veterinary care, Alan has radically changed the thinking of many game rearers and keepers through his work in preventative husbandry and management protocols which has assisted in reducing stock losses and medication bills within this industry.
Furthering this, Alan is very much focused on a holistic approach to veterinary medicine and believes that the correct monitoring of the environment, nutrition and biosecurity is the key to reducing disease in the poultry, game and ruminant sectors.
As Director, Alan brings to FarmWater an extensive veterinary knowledge and experience, as well as a passion for developments in agricultural technology to further improve the health and wellbeing of livestock through refining and improving husbandry and management protocols to enhance the poultry and ruminant sectors.
Ben qualified from Royal Veterinary College, London and having started working life in a mixed practice, concentrating on large animals and game birds, joined St David's Poultry Team to focus on the wider commercial poultry sector. He has since worked with a broad range of commercial producers including layers and broilers, breeders and rearers.
Continually evolving his veterinary approach to improve health, welfare and productivity, Ben is focussed on proactive and preventative versus reactive livestock management. As part of this, he believes that having good general husbandry in place, for example biosecurity and environmental hygiene - including food and water - is fundamental.
Before becoming a director of FarmWater, Ben had seen first-hand much greater interest and investment in water quality treatment programmes across the poultry industry and worked with producers to develop and implement systems and solutions to improve water hygiene.
Ben now works with a range of farms to put in place site-specific water treatment solutions, using the FarmWater system, that are fully integrated with veterinary support.
Since qualifying at Queens College, Cambridge, Richard has over 40 years' working as a veterinary surgeon. Having jointly founded one of the largest poultry practices in the UK alongside fellow FarmWater Director, Alan Beynon, Richard has extensive experience in many areas of poultry medicine and production and has a particular interest in the Broiler and Layer Industry.
He currently cares for over 200 million birds in the broiler sector and a large sector of the UK Layer Industry. Eight years ago Richard was the driving force in developing a veterinary practice for the poultry industry in Ireland and from a zero base he is now responsible for 2/3rd of the broilers in Eire, as well as Layers and Game Birds.
As a founder of Applied Bacterial Control Ltd and PrognostiX Ltd, Richard is acutely interested in the relationship between technology, animal health and welfare, and the need to further reduce antibiotic use across the animal health sector.
In addition to this, Richard is a former Director of Molecare Veterinary Services which was a joint venture with Mole Valley Farmers. Under Molecare Veterinary Services Richard developed his experience in ruminant and farm animal health care, adapting the concepts developed from his time in poultry and exploring how these could better improve the performance and health in wider farming practice.
Sitting on the board of directors for FarmWater, Richard is excited to be involved in this new project, to introduce and educate the agricultural and farming industries on the importance of clean water, and the considerable health impacts that this can have on the animal.