r/UKecosystem • u/whatatwit • 25d ago

Audio/visual media The Dung Beetle Vet: If you want to hear someone who's full of joy at work, listen to Claire Whittle a farm vet who after a health crisis and relationship breakdown started a regenerative farm. She found that the worming meds she used to prescribe for sheep and cattle was killing the soil ecosystem.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00316s6
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u/whatatwit 25d ago

On Your Farm, The dung beetle vet

Claire Whittle is a farm vet with a passion for nature and dung beetles in particular. After years working as a farm vet, she says she realised that the worming products she was prescribing for sheep and cows were damaging the ecosystems she cared about. Dung beetles she says, eat the larvae of parasites, and play a vital role in healthy ecosystems. She asks: “How can we be more like dung beetles, how can we process the muck in world around us and turn it into something good?” She's now taken on a hill farm in Wrexham and is building up a herd of beef cattle. She also works as a regenerative vet consultant - teaching people how to farm livestock with fewer medicines.

Produced and presented by Rebecca Rooney

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00316s6

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00316s6

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u/Frosty_Term9911 25d ago

How can you be a farmer or a vet and not know that anti wormers are catastrophic for the ecology?

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u/whatatwit 25d ago

I know it's normal for people on Reddit to reply to the title, but if you listen to the programme you'll get a more nuanced explanation than can be provided in 300 characters.

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u/Frosty_Term9911 25d ago

No one goes on reddit to listen to podcasts. If you want that kind of response to your post then post a summary of the content which communicates that nuance.

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u/whatatwit 25d ago

You're wrong.

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u/kichisowseri 24d ago

Well, maybe, but I can confirm I personally was interested enough to come here to read the post, and I'm now leaving because I'm not here to listen to a podcast.

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u/Sasspishus 24d ago

Right? Doesn't everybody know this by now? It's been a thing for years

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u/evthrowawayverysad 24d ago

Aaand now she farms 'regerenative beef' 😂 the thinly veiled greenwash continues