During 2010 nearly 25,000 cattle were slaughtered because of tuberculosis, this year it is reported that there has been a 6.8% increase in the number of farms affected in the first three month of the year compared with 2010 although there will be fluctuation over different months depending on testing patterns. The Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman  has now announced that 'We cannot go on like this. Many farmers are desperate and feel unable to control the disease in their herds.We know that unless we tackle the disease in badgers we will never be able to eradicate it in cattle. We also know that there is no country in the world which has successfully controlled TB in cattle without addressing its presence in the wildlife population'.

After a further six week period of consultation the plan is that a cull of badgers in two pilot areas will go ahead in 2012. This will occur over a large area of at least 150 km². It is thought  that the most humane way to do it is to attract badgers with a bait and shoot them at night with a rifle in the same way as foxes and deer are controlled at the moment. This would be done around the perimeter of the control zone at first gradually working towards the center. For it to work it is important that all of the badger setts in the zone are identified and dealt with. The plan is that the marks men that do this will work in the areas over a period of four years. It is not clear yet if it will be permissible to cull badgers in other areas while the initial pilot scheme is going on. All of this seems to be good news from the government, but things move painfully slowly and it could be many years before we are able to benefit from this new policy here in Shropshire.

Up to March 2012 the Welsh Assembly seemed to be leading the way as they were building up to a cull of badgers in Pembrokshire. Plans seemed to be well advanced the farmers in the area were keen to get something started then overnight there was a sudden change of policy and the idea was dropped. There is no guarantee that this could happen here in England.

In the summer of 2011Gloustershire Wildlife Trust undertook a vaccination programme of the badgers on seven of its nature reserves including a dairy farm. This is the first time that a private organisation has done this. The way it works is they bait the traps late in the afternoon and check them at 4am and 8am the following morning. Any badgers caught are injected into a muscle with the BadgerBCG vaccine. They are then marked and released. It is not clear just how many of the resident badgers had been injected at the end of the project or how long the traps were used on each site. The plan is to go back each year and revaccinate all of the badgers that can be trapped again. This is a long term project. It is thought that the vaccine will give no protection to animals that are already infected with the disease. The hope is that it will protect clean badgers and reduce the levels of infection in the population of badgers in these local areas.

The Gloucester wildlife Trust are keen to point out the economics of this ongoing project. The main out lay has been to buy the traps as these cost £100 each and they used 30 of them. This year the Shropshire Wildlife Trust have indicated that they intend to vaccinate badgers in conjunction with the Cheshire Wildlife Trust in the north of the county. It is not clear if there will be the opportunity to continue this in others parts of the county. There is some logic in partaking in a badger vaccination scheme especially if you suspect the badgers in your area may be clear of the disease at the moment. There is no data available to determine the likely success of such projects and it will be many years before we have any information about any possible benefits to cattle farmers.

Any one who keeps cattle or takes an interest in farming matters will not need me to tell you that this is a challenging and frustrating disease to deal with. I first came across Bovine TB as a Veterinary Student on a farm on the Dorset coast in 1975. At that time this was one of a handful of farms in a small area of the county that was still having problems with tuberculosis so I felt I was lucky to be able to see it. I remember I went with a Ministry Vet to the abattoir to hunt for the lesions inside the reactors after slaughter. I cannot recall if attempts were made to grow bacteria from the lymph nodes at that time, I still remember what the lesions looked like.

The association with badgers was first made in 1971 and for the next sixteen years significant progress was made to shrink down the few remaining infected areas by reducing the numbers of infected badgers. Things started to go wrong when this policy was criticized and eventually stopped in 1997 when the Labour Government was elected. The lowest numbers for new herds detected was between 1986 and 1988.

Here in Shropshire it has only been in the past eighteen years that we have started to see reactors and inconclusive reactors. It was Brucellosis that was the main concern in the seventies, cows and heifers were blood sampled every twelve months and all heifer calves intended for breeding were injected with the S19 vaccine. Tuberculin Testing was carried out only every four years and only the cows and bulls were ever tested at that time.

Over the past fifteen years we have gradually seen a steady increase in herd breakdowns. Reactors have been revealed both from the skin test and at the abattoir. Often only one or two from each herd, usually farms had a single incident with reactors revealed on one test and then clear of infection after sixty or one hundred and twenty days depending on any culture results.

Now you will be aware that the infection rate is increasing, often it is the younger  most productive animals that are involved. The are the more difficult and the most costly animals to replace.

It troubles me that no body in my profession has the authority to tackle this disease. It is sad to see the loss of so many productive animals not alone the unseen suffering of the innocent badger who did not want to get involved in all of this. I thought the whole point of the 1973 Badger Act was to protect their welfare not to leave them vulnerable to such a debilitating disease. It is wrong that the best we can do is to advise you not to drink the milk from your own cows and steer you towards a coping strategy so that you can carry on with your business when your cattle are under TB restrictions. You should have the choice to be able to rear and sell cattle at any age and not be forced to fatten everything that is born on your farm when TB 2 restrictions are in place.

If you are searching the internet you will know that there has been a huge amount of articles and opinions about Bovine Tuberculosis. There are reports from numerous seminars, conferences and study groups all giving data and opinions about the testing methods available to us, the way it spreads and ever rising statistics about the numbers of animals slaughtered. What is difficult to find is any sensible practical advise about what to do if you find yourself in an area where the infection is active. Is there anything that you can do to reduce the risk of infection?

In the past with long testing intervals reactors tended to be older cows, often animals that had not been reared on the farm, occasionally they would pass the infection on to one or two others in the winter when the herd was housed. Now with  shorter testing intervals there is a different pattern of infection, reactors can be of any age several will be found from a group of animals that have all shared the same field. We tend to identify reactors from June onwards into the early winter and there does not appear to be any spread of infection in the winter when the cattle are housed. I think the risk of Bovine Tuberculosis spreading with casual contact between neighboring cattle or at markets or shows is low.

In some ways the disease we are talking about has been miss named Mycobacterium bovis is able to get established and spreads throughout the organ system far more successfully in badgers than in cattle. In many ways badgers are the primary host of this disease, cattle get involved because they share the same fields as the infected badgers. In cattle the mycobacterium slowly grows in the lungs, the immune system takes it to the lymph nodes in the chest and then slowly it will move into other organs of the body. This is a chronic disease in cattle it would normally take years before condition is lost and you would realize there was a sick animal in the herd.

In badgers the infection is able to get established rapidly. Lesions are found not only in the chest cavity, but in the liver and kidneys as well. Because the immune system of the badger is unable to cope with the infection bacteria are readily passed in the urine. Badgers enjoy a moist diet of slugs and worms. They forage for them where the grass is short. One of the best feeding places is under cow pats. They will leave pastures contaminated with their urine after nocturnal foraging activities. It has been shown infected badgers can pass 300,000 bacilli in each millilitre of urine and 75,000 bacilli in each gram of faeces (Galagher Clifton-Hadley 2000) that they produce.

There must be some significance in the finding that the areas where Bovine Tuberculosis is most active are the areas where the badger population is also high. I have never seen a herd breakdown on a farm where the activities of badgers has not been noticed. Badgers are active mainly at night, they have limited eye sight and rely on their sense of smell to determine where they are. They tend to follow the same paths each night and they leave a scent trail by urinating as they walk so that others can work out who they are following. Researchers have used movement sensitive cameras in farm buildings and have been surprised to find how often some buildings are visited by badgers at night. They have been seen feeding alongside the cows, hunting rodents and using the water troughs. Badger urine and faeces can be found in the feeding areas in the morning.

The Badger Protection Act came into force in 1973 and since then there has been a sharp increase in the badger population. It is not clear why this should be. There was some persecution of badgers before they were protected, but this occurred only in isolated places and I do not think it had a measurable effect on the badger population. Something else must have happened in the seventies and eighties that has led to the huge improvement in the fortunes of badgers. During that time in general farms have become more specialized. Economic pressures have led to bigger herd sizes. There are more permanent grass leys, crops are not rotated in ways that were in the past. New varieties of maize have been discovered that can be grown anywhere in the country. On the other hand less organic material was put back onto the land and slugs and snails on arable crops could be controlled effectively with chemicals. At the end of the seventies there were several dry summers, young badgers have problems in dry summers when worms and slugs retreat deep underground. Why do you think there has been an increase in the badger population?

Over the years many of you have declared war on your local badgers and have made valiant efforts to keep them out of your maize fields, out of your yards and buildings or out of your gardens to stop them harvesting your vegetables before you have had a chance to enjoy any of them. Most of these efforts will eventually fail. These are intelligent determined creatures who will dig or climb to get to  a new food source. It has been found that if they can get their head through a gap they will be able to find a way through. They will get into buildings if the gap under the doors is more than three inches. Have you found a way of keeping badgers away? If so please share it with us.

Why is the modern dairy cow so susceptible to becoming infected with tuberculosis? In the past we used to go out and treat individual diseases such as mastitis or milk fever. Today we are dealing far more with infertility and nutritional problems. Production expectations have increased so much cattle are pushed to their limits right from the time they are first born, they do not get a chance for their immune system to mature. There is some evidence that the way we breed and keep cattle today does make them vulnerable to chronic diseases. Have you ever seen 280 cows grazing in one field? They each have only a small area to eat from, some of the herd that were last from the milking parlor will find very little grass waiting for them. There are no opportunities to avoid grass that has been contaminated with cattle or badger urine.

Is there anything we can do to make pastures less attractive to badgers? Does harrowing to break up the cow pats help? Is the country stewardship scheme working in favor of the badger? Do electric fences have a deterrent effect either as a single strand or using sheep fencing? Some electrical devices that repel rodents emit a regular ultrasonic pulse and an electro magnetic field to deter only the small mammals that can hear them. Is there a device that might work near badger setts or on fencing to prevent them crossing a field?

I have often stood by a badger sett in an afternoon and wondered what was in there. I assume that badgers mainly sleep during the day, but are they all in one chamber, do they sleep in family groups in the same place each day or are they all mixed up. How does the social structure of the sett work? Who is in charge is it the sows or is there a dominant boar that determines who does what during the night and day? Are there a number of sets that many be visited by a stable number of badgers or do other individuals range over a wider area. If you know the answers to any of these questions please let me know.

Badgers seem to have a short breeding period so that all of the cubs are born early in the spring when their food supply is abundant. Veterinary Surgeons will know that there are drugs we use to control the fertility of other feral species, notably cats, to affect their fertility and ultimately the numbers of un wanted strays. Because badgers are fertile for a limited period each year there must be the possibility that something could be done to control their breeding. Is there just one dominant male who does all of the mating. I have never vasectomised a badger before, if there was a good reason for doing it I would be prepared to have a go.

Cattle seem to be under more stress today. Just think most of the cattle tested forty years ago were secured in a stall by the neck. There were few crushes in those days. Can you imagine trying to do that with the animals we keep today? Beef cattle and some dairy animals are highly tuned and wary of any change in their routine, they take flight at the slightest provocation more like a flock of deer than a herd of cattle. They are bred to grow quickly and milk heavily, little thought has gone into breeding disease resistance into the modern dairy cow or beef animal.

We need your help to make this page helpful to other readers. If you have any ideas and know things about badger control or if you have studied these animals and know their likes and dislikes please get in touch the address is CliveNorrell@compuserve.com

We have got to the stage now on some farms where they have lost so many animals to this disease that they feel the only option left is to keep their cattle in buildings through out the year. This is a big step to take and works only if you can secure your buildings 100% from the interests of visiting badgers and ensure that you do not bring in any animals that are incubating the disease. You must also make sure that you do not bring in any feed that may have been contaminated by badger urine or faeces. There is some useful information and videos about this on the TB Free England web site.

Here are the top tips for avoiding Bovine Tuberculosis, you might not find them very practical, but on some farms they may help.

1) If you feed maize would it be possible to site the clamp within a building that you can close at night to prevent badgers feeding and contaminating the silage.

2)If you can identify a single active sett would it be possible to plough the adjacent field and sow a crop of barley or some other arable crop

3) Avoid feeding any of the concentrate ration on the field and make sure that any mineral blocks and buckets are tied to trees or fence posts so that only cattle can reach them.

4) Protect all of your grazing fields with a perimeter fence of two strands of electric fencing wire six inches and twelve inches above the ground (the bottom two options on the plastic fencing posts) This should be in place for at least one month before the fields are used in the spring and ideally it should be powered from a fencing unit connected to the mains and left running all of the time. I realize that this is a big commitment as regular maintenance is required to keep a low fence working, but it is worth it if you are serious about keeping your herd free from tuberculosis.

5) Badgers pass faeces in specific areas called latrines. These are often adjacent to active setts and sometimes on the edge of fields that your cattle might use. Would it be possible to stop cattle having access to these areas with a suitable fence?

6)If you are mixed farm can you graze sheep on the fields that are frequented by badgers and keep cattle away?

7)If you have horses move them next to the badger sett.

We need more suggestions........................the rest is up to you.

Return Home