i wish there were a better compromise, but it is at least fast and cheap. (gamma lab work alone costs £24 (?) per beast.)
And it has worked perfectly well on The Isle of Man -as far as i know- where there are (all together now) NO BADGERS.
TB
- Thread starter lazy farmer
- Start date
i wish there were a better compromise, but it is at least fast and cheap. (gamma lab work alone costs £24 (?) per beast.)
And it has worked perfectly well on The Isle of Man -as far as i know- where there are (all together now) NO BADGERS.
ollie989898
Member
Try to ignore that kind of crap, it was only one retired 'expert'- we have completed the cull here and are seeing the first signs of some improvement but that is only down to anecdotes. A lot of people around here are big on only buying animals from cleared farms and will not enter a cattle market. The worm is also turning on maize as a forage crop because you lose count of the crops that show the signs of being hit by badgers, all rooting and peeing in the crop which then goes straight into a silage pit ready to infect an entire herd.
The expert in question claimed the public will not agree to having 40,000 badgers shot each year, I disagree' they have been accepting the wanton destruction of that number of cattle per year for decades, and been paying for it, too.
Throw a few handfuls of dairy cake on the deck in your yard and setup a night vision camera. A customer of mine did exactly that one night and got the shock of his life because over dozen badgers promptly arrived on scene overnight.
jimmer
Member
- Location
- East Devon
There are policies out there
With the greatest respect, do you REALLY believe that badgers do not breed and spread outside of their area?
matthew
Member
- Location
- Cornwall, SW England
I wrote about that 15 years ago, and the answer was given in our PQs. Exposure to risk is too great.
We use a. Bushnell trail cam with black flash. Good piece of kit...
Sometimes you get an inquisitive cow’s nose, but you can see clearly what’s about, and the time it visits.
Certainly when a common food source is identified, territorial rights are abandoned. Midland farmer was puzzled at damage to the sheets covering his maize clamp. His cameras showed 86 badgers. That’s right - 86. Social group size is between 6 and 8.
Tim .Roper’s night cameras tracked three social groups of badgers visiting a TMR feed for cattle in a centre passage. Then independently, they returned to their setts. Full.
Fallowfield
Member
Scholsey
Member
- Location
- Herefordshire
lazy farmer
Member
- Location
- som/dor border
As I am often heard to say I am simple and I long for simple so to that end why cannot we agree that badgers and cattle both spread tb.
Is that not a fair assumption @Fallowfield ?
if that is the case then should not both populations have controls on them?
To my mind the biggest step forward will come in the form of new less invasive testing more accurate testing which is hopefully near.
This will stop any cattle “float” and any potential cattle to wildlife spread allowing us to focus on the background disease in our countryside.
I really don’t see the benefit of calling each other names as it gets us no where but neither to I see the sense in avoiding the evidence as this achieves precisely nothing in the battle to eradicate this pernicious disease.
Is that not a fair assumption @Fallowfield ?
if that is the case then should not both populations have controls on them?
To my mind the biggest step forward will come in the form of new less invasive testing more accurate testing which is hopefully near.
This will stop any cattle “float” and any potential cattle to wildlife spread allowing us to focus on the background disease in our countryside.
I really don’t see the benefit of calling each other names as it gets us no where but neither to I see the sense in avoiding the evidence as this achieves precisely nothing in the battle to eradicate this pernicious disease.
matthew
Member
- Location
- Cornwall, SW England
VLA's spoligotype maps and cattle tracings do not indicate a cattle spread of this bacterium. As Defra have said - on the whole, they speak with 'regional accents'.
https://bovinetb.blogspot.com/2013/04/it-is-somewhat-unusual-to-find-us.html
And a badger can travel just as far as any bovine, and frequently does: a hitch hiker's guide to TB.
This one originated in Essex, was mended in Somerset and released in Wales, where he died.
https://bovinetb.blogspot.com/2016/04/towie.html
(baby badgers are tested before release from SW and other sanctuaries, but adults are are not, we are told)
The latest report is peppered with descriptions of 'iconic' badgers and an 'upset' public.
And that is where any disease policy fails. Throwing its cattle farmers under the proverbial bus, while allowing mileage (votes?) of those with much to say, but no direct consequences of what they utter, plus a cash grab for spurious research, has led to the situation we find ourselves in today.
And the people responsible are still sitting like peacocks amongst the wreckage of 40,000 dead cattle per year, a trade ban threatening and a very sick badger population - iconic or not.
They bear no responsibility whatsoever for their greed, obfuscation and downright lies.
Defra demand that farmers 'own' this disease (in cattle) but show no signs of 'owning' the decades of duplicitous one sided carnage which led us here.
(Sorry - having perused that report, I'm still seething. Rant over
.)lazy farmer
Member
- Location
- som/dor border
On the upset public bit. Where are they? Our cull this season was the quietest one so far.
there are culls going on in the so called upset publics own area and they don't even know about it
- Location
- North West England
The small number of animal rights extremists , Hunt sabs and vegan antis that make up the majority of the protest are spread ever thinner as culling expands.
fieldfarmer
Member
Can I respectfully ask @Fallowfield how much TB has personally cost you in £ in the last few years, because its very easy to aim for the moral high ground if its not your business that is suffering?
We went TB free yesterday so will be building the stock numbers back up again having not bought any thing since feb , not restocking means no income.
lazy farmer
Member
- Location
- som/dor border
This is where the new test is vital so we can be sure when restocking th stock we buy are clear.
Does anyone know the time scale for the trials? And how accurate it is claimed to be ?
Scholsey
Member
- Location
- Herefordshire
Totally agree but its also more than just money something that only people who have had to load good cows as TB reactors or hold a gate around so they can be shot on farm can understand. I think everyone who thinks they are entitled to a opinion on the matter should experience it, got to load one of my favourite cows tomorrow, and guess what, we have a closed herd that doesnt get within 500m of other cattle.
fieldfarmer
Member
I could not agree more , I was unable to stay and watch one be shot, I had to leave it to someone else, low stock numbers have also meant that one employee that left has not been replaced.
matthew
Member
- Location
- Cornwall, SW England
Can’t ‘like’ that.
Sorry. Been there. Personally I think too many people with nothing to lose, have far too much to say on this matter. They are not saving badgers, they are prolonging their agony.
A Grade 3 zoonosis, and it’s eradication, is not a matter for debate or consultation.
3/917 irs. Frustrating. Hope to only have to test those 3 in 60 days time.
lazy farmer
Member
- Location
- som/dor border
We seriously considered getting rid now and retesting the herd.
As soon as they passed on their next test we got rid.