- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
I’ve had unsettling dream.
In it, all these worthy bodies came up with a much lauded guide on how to keep my cattle safe from TB. One of cornerstones of the guide is advice is to keep wildlife – black and white wildlife- away from my cattle. To help me, the shiny website has all manner of suggestions about fencing my livestock separate from those pesky badgers, and keeping them from getting at the cattle food. I was confused-in this dream- but luckily found myself able to ask some DEFRA big wig. Doing some quick ready reckoning, I explained that I farm something like 300 head of cattle, over an enclosed area of about 600 hectares, plus common grazings. Within, and scattered right across that area, lie numerous active badger setts- 20 plus-, and while I don’t know exactly, there must be nearly as many badgers as bullocks. Most of my cattle spend most of their lives eating and sleeping outdoors, with the wildlife. Each of my neighbouring farmers operates in a similar fashion, albeit with a bit more aplomb and professionalism than Twitface McCoaker. Other than odd bits of woodland, there aren’t any blocks of land which aren’t farmed.
So how, I asked, do we separate wildlife from cattle? Do I fence around each sett? I certainly could do that, if I wanted to starve my badgers to death- which I absolutely don’t. Do I give them little corridors to meet up with each other for procreative purposes? I’m sorry, I’ll stop there. Already the image portrayed is an offensive fantasyland. Some kind of urbanised hellhole distortion of the landscape I love.
Not listening especially intently, the DEFRA Grande Fromage simply told me I was taking foolish risks with my cattle, implying any TB would be my own fault. I shouldn’t graze cattle on such ground. Given my forebears association with both the cattle and the landscape, I found his response about as offensive as it could possibly be, and staying in his presence without taking ‘remedial action’ took a measure of determination. I was outraged that he can pilot a very big desk indeed with such arrogant indifference.
Critically, he, and this advisory site, seemed to imagine that farmland is somehow separate from where the wildlife lives. That my cows and my badgers inhabit different places.
Shortly after this very difficult dreamscape meeting, a report came out suggesting that the spread of TB is partially the fault of various farming methods. Intensification, maize silage, -seemingly- grass silage, removal of hedgerows, and such wicked things are all in the firing line. The report has predictably met with rebuffs from industry, and clamouring delight from the badgerist brigade.
Taking a detached view…and this is seeing what I can see from up on the hill… Yes, very likely intensive cattle farming is a higher risk. Without a 100% accurate TB test, more cows in one place, highly bred, and fed on rocket fuel, inevitably must be an issue. I wouldn’t want to farm like it, but the marketplace is driving farmers down that route. And maize silage is one of the key management strategies, bringing its own problems. I understand old brock will travel miles for maize- and fencing him out is pretty difficult. Silage per se I’m not sure about. Perhaps it’s about silage being chopped in a forager. If it’s harvested without a few days of UV sunshine to cook the bugs in the badger poop, and but hoovered up and chopped into tiny lengths, becoming one homogenised mound in the clamp….maybe that’s where they’re coming from.
As for hedge removal, I’m not sure I buy the rationale.
Anyway, yes I daresay there’s some foundation in what the report says. But we’ve necessarily come a long way from old ‘Buttercup’ meandering in from the meadow with the rosy cheeked dairymaid, to yield up a few pints for the farmhouse. It simply isn’t going to happen like that. I’ve seen TB in conditions far from what they’re describing…almost diametrically opposite. So keep the report in perspective.
The wildlife remains infected and effectively unmanaged, and neither report, Grande Fromage, nor trendy website, have any plan to sort it out. We’re doing what we can, and have our own bio-security measures. It’s unsung, but when one of us goes down, we generally immediately start trying to work out how to minimise the impact. Where possible, we try and isolate suspect animals, and manage our grazing around the problem sites. I’ll speed up the slaughter of beasts I deem a risk. We try and find best practise to get clear. We’re already doing what we can…perhaps it’s their turn to ‘man up’ now.
I keep beating against the walls of this horrible dream, but don’t seem to be able to awaken from it.
About the author
Originally published in The Western Morning News, these articles are reproduced for the enjoyment of TFF members World-wide by kind permission of the author Anton Coaker and the WMN
Anton Coaker is a fifth generation farmer keeping suckler cows and flocks of hill sheep high on the Forest of Dartmoor and running a hardwood and mobile sawmill.
A prodigious writer and regular correspondent for The Western Morning News, NFU and The Farming Forum, Anton’s second book “The Complete Bullocks” is available from www.anton-coaker.co.uk
In it, all these worthy bodies came up with a much lauded guide on how to keep my cattle safe from TB. One of cornerstones of the guide is advice is to keep wildlife – black and white wildlife- away from my cattle. To help me, the shiny website has all manner of suggestions about fencing my livestock separate from those pesky badgers, and keeping them from getting at the cattle food. I was confused-in this dream- but luckily found myself able to ask some DEFRA big wig. Doing some quick ready reckoning, I explained that I farm something like 300 head of cattle, over an enclosed area of about 600 hectares, plus common grazings. Within, and scattered right across that area, lie numerous active badger setts- 20 plus-, and while I don’t know exactly, there must be nearly as many badgers as bullocks. Most of my cattle spend most of their lives eating and sleeping outdoors, with the wildlife. Each of my neighbouring farmers operates in a similar fashion, albeit with a bit more aplomb and professionalism than Twitface McCoaker. Other than odd bits of woodland, there aren’t any blocks of land which aren’t farmed.
So how, I asked, do we separate wildlife from cattle? Do I fence around each sett? I certainly could do that, if I wanted to starve my badgers to death- which I absolutely don’t. Do I give them little corridors to meet up with each other for procreative purposes? I’m sorry, I’ll stop there. Already the image portrayed is an offensive fantasyland. Some kind of urbanised hellhole distortion of the landscape I love.
Not listening especially intently, the DEFRA Grande Fromage simply told me I was taking foolish risks with my cattle, implying any TB would be my own fault. I shouldn’t graze cattle on such ground. Given my forebears association with both the cattle and the landscape, I found his response about as offensive as it could possibly be, and staying in his presence without taking ‘remedial action’ took a measure of determination. I was outraged that he can pilot a very big desk indeed with such arrogant indifference.
Critically, he, and this advisory site, seemed to imagine that farmland is somehow separate from where the wildlife lives. That my cows and my badgers inhabit different places.
Shortly after this very difficult dreamscape meeting, a report came out suggesting that the spread of TB is partially the fault of various farming methods. Intensification, maize silage, -seemingly- grass silage, removal of hedgerows, and such wicked things are all in the firing line. The report has predictably met with rebuffs from industry, and clamouring delight from the badgerist brigade.
Taking a detached view…and this is seeing what I can see from up on the hill… Yes, very likely intensive cattle farming is a higher risk. Without a 100% accurate TB test, more cows in one place, highly bred, and fed on rocket fuel, inevitably must be an issue. I wouldn’t want to farm like it, but the marketplace is driving farmers down that route. And maize silage is one of the key management strategies, bringing its own problems. I understand old brock will travel miles for maize- and fencing him out is pretty difficult. Silage per se I’m not sure about. Perhaps it’s about silage being chopped in a forager. If it’s harvested without a few days of UV sunshine to cook the bugs in the badger poop, and but hoovered up and chopped into tiny lengths, becoming one homogenised mound in the clamp….maybe that’s where they’re coming from.
As for hedge removal, I’m not sure I buy the rationale.
Anyway, yes I daresay there’s some foundation in what the report says. But we’ve necessarily come a long way from old ‘Buttercup’ meandering in from the meadow with the rosy cheeked dairymaid, to yield up a few pints for the farmhouse. It simply isn’t going to happen like that. I’ve seen TB in conditions far from what they’re describing…almost diametrically opposite. So keep the report in perspective.
The wildlife remains infected and effectively unmanaged, and neither report, Grande Fromage, nor trendy website, have any plan to sort it out. We’re doing what we can, and have our own bio-security measures. It’s unsung, but when one of us goes down, we generally immediately start trying to work out how to minimise the impact. Where possible, we try and isolate suspect animals, and manage our grazing around the problem sites. I’ll speed up the slaughter of beasts I deem a risk. We try and find best practise to get clear. We’re already doing what we can…perhaps it’s their turn to ‘man up’ now.
I keep beating against the walls of this horrible dream, but don’t seem to be able to awaken from it.
About the author
Originally published in The Western Morning News, these articles are reproduced for the enjoyment of TFF members World-wide by kind permission of the author Anton Coaker and the WMN
Anton Coaker is a fifth generation farmer keeping suckler cows and flocks of hill sheep high on the Forest of Dartmoor and running a hardwood and mobile sawmill.
A prodigious writer and regular correspondent for The Western Morning News, NFU and The Farming Forum, Anton’s second book “The Complete Bullocks” is available from www.anton-coaker.co.uk
