Pre Movement Testing

The State Veterinary Service has had a chance of heart and has decided that it will now fund one Pre Movement Test from farms in England until the end of June. They have been able to do this because they are taking advantage of European Union state aid for agricultural businesses. The rules of the scheme are that you can claim up to 3,000 euros in any three years. It is thought that very few farms would have claimed more than this in the past three years, but to check if you are eligible you will need to ring the Animal Health Office first so that we can claim the expenses for the test when we send in the results. This temporary scheme covers tests carried out from 20^th February and you will be able to claim back the costs of one test by first phoning the Animal Health Office to see if you qualify and then send in a copy of the paid surgery invoice so that they can refund the payment. It seems to me that this is quite a cumbersome way of dealing with this matter, but hopefully DEFRA will find a way of getting it to work. There is no scheme to fund the Pre Movement Testing that has just started from farms in Wales for some reason.

Avoiding the Test

In many ways Pre Movement Testing is unfair as it does not affect farms that normally have tests only every four or three years. This does not always mean that they are not at risk from the disease as often they are close to other herds that are having to comply with the rules. It also seems very unfair if the stock moved are not being sold but merely moving onto another holding, perhaps where there is no other stock, for summer grazing or winter housing. You can get around this if you wish by extending your sole occupancy authority so that the extra fields are included. Most Sole Occupancy Authorities started in 2001 when Foot and Mouth was about and many do not include all of the fields that you now rent or use so it might be worth amending them to keep them up to date.

Thistles and Holly

Sheep are pretty robust for their size and they will eat most growing things even though their mouths are not as tough as those of cattle. Because of this they quite often get lesions in their mouths, but these are not easy to see as they will not open their mouths very far. Just why sheep find the need to eat holly and thistles is difficult to understand. That is one of the reasons why they are susceptible to Orf, because the virus is able to get established in damaged tissues. If you do not have Orf in your sheep try to keep the lambs away from pastures with thistles and holly hedges. It is better not to vaccinate against Orf unless you actually have the disease in your flock as the vaccine contains a modified live virus. Once you start to use it the vaccination has to be done every year, if you can keep the infection out of your flock by pasture management and careful purchasing it would be better.

Wires and Stones

Cattle too will eat an amazing array of hardware, most of which will pass into the football like organ at the front of the rumen called the reticulum and cause little harm. Even sharp metal objects can lodge here for months and not give any outward signs of their presence. The one thing that must not get in here are pieces of wire from the tyres that end up on the top of silage sheets. These are particularly dangerous because as the reticulum contracts they are forced forwards, pass through the base of the liver and are then only two centimeters away from the muscles of the heart. As soon as the wall of the gut has been pierced all rumen movements stop and fibrous material accumulates in the rumen. If the wire has passed as far as the heart nothing is going to stop the ultimate outcome of the illness. There is a tendency to use covers on top of silage pits now and in the long term this must be a good thing. If you still have tyres take a critical look at them now and discard any that have rusting wires exposed. It does help to roll back the sheet as the pit is used up, but it is not always easy to do this when it is cold and windy in the middle of the winter or if there is a slope to the exposed face. Sometimes worming boluses can aggravate problems in the reticulum if there are already sharp objects or stones there, they should be used with care if the young stock have had poor silage in the winter.

Teasing Ewes

Did your lambing seem to go on for ever this year? If you have only limited space for lambing pens this might be acceptable. It is not easy to manage a large age range in the flock as the older lambs tend to get held back. There are various strategies to get a tighter lambing pattern, it is important not to have the lambs too fat, and to move them onto a new pasture when the rams start to work. All too often nothing happens when the rams are first introduced to the ewes, it is often the second season that most of the ewes hold to. If you have a small flock progesterone sponges may help to hold up the ewe’s cycle so that they are all ready when the devices are removed. This is not so easy to do if there are a large number of animals involved, in this situation it is better to use teaser rams. Rams selected for this should be young and preferably should have done some work as fertile rams last year so that you know they are keen to work. They should be vasectomised at least eight weeks before you need to use them. Normally teaser rams will have to work for only two weeks each year so it is no good selecting animals that are prone to foot problems as they will not be able to work to their full potential.

Animal Disease Hits the Headlines

It is unusual for Anthrax to reach the national news headlines, but two cows from South Wales managed it last week. It might be that the papers had run out of bird flu stories and were pleased to have stumbled across another killer disease instead. It appears that five other animals had died on the farm recently but only the two cows were positive for Anthrax. This disease is not usually difficult to diagnose from a blood smear. It is better if we can do the test within twenty four hours of death, but we do get samples much later than that sometimes. Anthrax is a very persistant organism and it can lie dormant in some soils almost indefinitely. Some of you will remember the disease from contaminated animal feed imported some fifteen or so years ago. It appears that this farm last had a case in the nineteen seventies. If Anthrax is found the carcass is cremated on the farm. It is not easy to burn a cow properly and sometimes the cremation can lead to further soil contamination. I am not sure why affected cows cannot be moved to commercial incinerators, this would not have been a viable option thirty five years ago, but should be easy to organise now. Anthrax is a serious zoonosis so please remember to report all cases of sudden death in adult cattle so that we can ensure that it is safe for the animal to be collected.

Protecting Cattle

Thinking of diseases that we can catch from animals Leptospirosis must be high up on the list. True not many people die from Leptospirosis, but it is all too common and easy to catch if you help an infected cow to calve or come into close contact with cows when they are being milked. Leptospirosis often goes unrecognised particularly in suckler herds. It does not always cause cattle to abort and is more likely to manifest itself as reduced fertility and calves that are born weak and struggle to survive. Few herds can avoid the risk factors of:

 not using a bull,

not drinking from ponds and streams,

not grazing at the same time as or shortly after sheep have been on the pasture

not buying in heifers and not rearing all of your replacements.

Preventing leptospirosis is a long term project. If you are having abortions these will stop as soon as you start vaccinating . The performance of your herd will slowly improve over the years as long as you maintain the immunity of your herd each spring.

Heifers

Unless you can organise things so that young stock do not have contact with any of the risk factors or older cattle it is usually better to vaccinate them before they first go to pasture. Remember they need two injections a month apart first time then annual boosters.

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