The TB Situation

Things continue to deteriorate both locally and nationally with bovine tuberculosis. Locally we are seeing more farms with reactors, sometimes with just small numbers, but certainly enough to cause you an increase in the work you have to do. There continues to be a stream of tracing tests generated by herd breakdowns after stock has left farms usually as calves. This causes you all sorts of problems because it is difficult to keep track of them all and get the animals concerned tested within the short testing window to avoid movement restrictions being imposed on your farm.

Booking Tracing Tests

When AHVLA changed their computer system for reporting the results of Tuberculin Tests they seemed to have overlooked the tracing tests as they have no way of identifying animals that are on a tracing test when whole herd tests or pre movement tests are carried out at the same time. All of the tracing tests have to be documented separately which leaves us spending more of our time in front of a computer screen when we should be treating animals.

The Numbers

In 2011 a total of 34,247 animals were slaughtered as a direct result of Tuberculosis last year the numbers had increased to 37,753. There were 5,171 new incidents in 2012 compared to 4,901 in the previous year. At the moment 40% of England and the whole of Wales is on annual testing and 8 million tests were completed last year. Even with all of this testing the work that we are doing has not stopped the spread of bovine tuberculosis and its encroachment into clean areas. There is a reservoir of infection in badgers in England and Wales that leads to considerable difficulties in halting the ongoing spread of the disease. In endemic areas such as Shropshire up to 40% of the badger population is infected. Nothing is being done to stop the spread of infected badgers here. The pilot badger cull might start this week, but it will take many years for it to be used through out the endemic areas and for it to have an impact on the disease situation in our cattle.

Bold Badgers

Badgers are clever animals that can readily adapt to their changing surroundings. They are bold enough to forage on closely cut lawns and come back night after night when peanuts and other food is put out for them. They have welcomed the trend to keep poultry in back gardens as it supplies a regular source of food and birds if they ever manage to get into a hen house at night.

 I don’t know how they know it but badgers will travel miles to visit a field of maize. At the moment there is a huge increase in the amount of maize that is planted either to feed cattle or digesters that produce energy. We are doing little to discourage badgers and the spread of the diseases that they carry. We continue to turn a blind eye to the damage they do on our farms and to our wild life

Control Measures

Vaccinating badgers does seem to make people who help to preserve our wild life feel better, yet the vaccine was never designed to be used for this purpose it is expensive to administer and has never been trailed to determine if it has any beneficial effects. There is no indication that an oral vaccine will ever be developed for badgers as it would be difficult to keep control of it and prevent cattle and other animals picking up the bait.

Containing the Disease

I think it is time we concentrated our limited resources on preventing the spread of infection eastwards across the country. In endemic areas where there is already annual testing there is little benefit from tracing animals that left a now infected farm as calves to test them at a specific time. I do not think these are high risk animals, so far we have not had an animal fail a tracing test so why not wait until a routine herd test is due. Certainly animals that are transferred to a dedicated fattening unit should not be traced as they would have been pre movement tested at least once and would normally be seen at least once more before they leave the farm.

Ongoing Research

The University of Nottingham has a new Veterinary School and is collaborating with scientists at the China Agricultural University in Beijing to try and discover if it is possible to use bacteria already found in cattle to enhance their protection against a range of diseases including bovine tuberculosis. They have discovered novel interactions between different bacterial types with mixed infections. One bacterial type has been shown to stimulate short term immunity against unrelated bacterial infections to give a significant immunity. The hope is that they will be able to grow cultures and inject cattle with live bacteria that will protect them against diseases such as tuberculosis. This might be a way of developing a vaccine that would not cause problem with the tuberculin skin test. There are already vaccines against the other significant bacterial diseases for cattle such as blackleg and leptospirosis.

Red Tractor Assurance Scheme

As you will be aware The Red Tractor Farm Assurance Scheme has changed from now on there will be a greater emphasis on looking at your stock and their welfare and less time spent looking at your buildings and paperwork. I understand that the British Cattle Veterinary Association Health Planner which we have used since it was first brought out is no longer fully compliant with the new scheme rules unless you make additions to the documents. From now on it would be better if you could download the Health Scheme Template from ww.redtractorassurance.org.uk fill in as much as you can and then bring it in for completion. There are different templates for Dairy, Beef and Sheep. Also the website has templates for medicines used which you might find useful as well.

The first Schmallenberg Vaccine

MSD Animal Health has now got a licence for their Schmallenberg Vaccine and they have told us that it will be with the Wholesalers early this month. They have pushed this vaccine through in record time which is a remarkable achievement. The vaccine will come in 20 ml or 100 ml vials the dose is 2ml for both cattle and sheep. Cattle will need two intra muscular injections one month apart and sheep a single subcutaneous injection. This is an inactivated vaccine that should not be used on pregnant animals or bulls and rams that will be used for breeding. At the moment we have no information about the price of the Bovilis SBV vaccine.

Natural Immunity

It is difficult to know what sort of an impact the Schmallenberg virus will have next year. The midges have been active for some time now and the chances are that most of your animals will now be immune to this disease.

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