Identifying Dogs

It is now more than two years ago since the rules and regulations for the compulsory micro chipping of dogs was agreed and next week is the date chosen for it to be implemented in both England and Wales. As I understand it the wording is slightly different in the two countries but essentially all dogs over the age of eight weeks must now be micro chipped and the owners details must be registered on one of the four computer data bases that can be used for this purpose. The registered details must include the name and address of the owner and at least one contact number. Microchips have been around for a long time and they are pretty fool proof. The better ones have a biological coating which makes them stick to the skin above the shoulder blades. They are designed to last longer than your dog. They are small and you can only feel them in a few thin skinned individuals. The readers activate the chip and display the number. The newer readers we use will also alert us if the chip is from an animal that has been reported lost or stolen so we have got into the habit of scanning all animals that are new to us. Occasionally we come across a cat that has been with an owner for several years but is still registered to someone else.

Breeders Responsibility

From now on it will be an offence if any dog or puppy is sold without a microchip. It will be the breeder’s responsibility to ensure that this has been done and that they are registered to their new owners. One thing that I have always found a bit odd is that there is no way of reporting that animals have died. The data base just goes on growing and cannot be used to estimate the number of actual dogs that are in the country or give a guide to population trends. The weakness of the system is when people move and do not update their telephone and address details, on the pet log system it is possible to track the Veterinary Practice that brought the microchip and this can sometimes help.

Identity Disc

It is not at all clear how this new legislation will be policed. We have been told that we are not required to tell any one if we come across a dog that has no microchip. It will still be a legal requirement for all dogs to wear a disc with details of the owner and contact numbers. If this happened we wouldn’t get involved with any lost dogs and even now most of the lost dogs we come across do not have either an identity disc or a microchip. Sadly many dogs that go missing are repeat offenders and will turn up a week later still with no identity disc and no microchip. We regularly use our scanners to make sure the chips are still working, but we do not have the resources to check that the registration details are correct on the pet log screen. There is always the hope that the new rules will reduce the number of sheep worrying incidents. In this situation the difficulty is that you may not be about to witness the event. Mobile phones help if you are close enough to get some photographs. It can be very difficult to catch the dog, or often dogs involved. If you can do that safely microchip details are essential when it comes to working out who is responsible for the animals involved and what to do with them.

Scouring Lambs

Even under the best of circumstances it is difficult to avoid calves and lambs that scour. There is often pressure on buildings, especially when the weather is wet and you cannot move calves and lambs out of the pens they were born in. Scour for lambs can soon get out of control as pens get contaminated, you will have other sheep to deal with and infections can readily spread. Prophylactic treatments are helpful to prevent scour and depending on what you use, stop navel and joint infections as well. New born animals sometimes scour because they have had inadequate colostrum. This applies particularly with twins and triplets, there might not be enough to go round and it might be helpful to top up twins and triplets with artificial colostrum after they have first sucked to make sure that they are adequately protected.

Scouring Calves

With calves it can sometimes be helpful to determine which pathogens you have active on your farm, if you are dealing with either Rotavirus or Corona virus it will be better to consider vaccinating the cows when they go dry as the infection is so severe it is difficult to control in any other way. When you are doing this it focuses attention back on the colostrum as the vaccine will be wasted if the calves do not get the chance to take in enough. If things go wrong it can help to check blood samples to monitor if the calves are getting sufficient antibodies to cover their needs. There is a tendency to assume that the problem you are dealing with is the same as you have seen in the past, perhaps more severe and that it will eventually respond as it has before. There is no harm in checking with a faeces sample every once in a while just to make sure nothing new has turned up and that you are using the best treatments.

BSE Still Lingering On

It is such a long time since we had last seen a cow with BSE that it was time to confine the condition to history and wonder how we were so foolish to authorize a feeding practice that lead to the disaster in the first place. Today there is a report that a cow who was euthanased on March 1^st because she lost the use of her back legs on a farm in France has been confirmed as a positive case. This is very disappointing as the last case in that country was in 2011 in the year that the latest victim was born. BSE is still monitored throughout Europe, previous cases have been diagnosed in animals after death that have shown no symptoms. The European Reference Laboratory for BSE is in Weybridge so we get to know about what is going on. As you know BSE has a long incubation period and shows different often subtle signs that go un noticed now. It is difficult to explain how it has been dormant in France for the past five years.

Last Cases Here

The last case in England was in 2012 so we were thinking it was history until a Cow was found positive for the condition in Wales last October. It sounds like we will need to monitor BSE for some years to come as we seems to have got back to the back ground levels that have perhaps always been present in cattle but were unnoticed because we had no means of diagnosing the condition then.

Ticks from France

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