All things Dairy

[upnortheast]

i was only saying to my vet the other day that 4 yrs is far too long, would be much better bringing it down to 2yr testing as a minimum

Yep a lot can go wrong in 4 years.
We sell quite a few cattle & frequently TB test them if it will encourage the buyers. - & us piece of mind that nothing is going on between official tests

 

[stablegirl]

To be fair, i may be in a TB4, but we have tested 5 times in the last 4 years, for one reason or another.

I agree everyone should be annual.

 

[Homesy]

Hence we should all be on yearly testing.

I’m in a Tb4 parish and all the breakdowns in our locality have come from buying in,fortunately yearly testing by dealers has caught some.

Does anyone pay for their own yearly testing (whole herd)?

Problem is , the more your cows are tested the more they become desensitised to the test. So more annual testing is not always the answer. Most btb is spread by the badgers anyway so skin testing is only ever damping down. If you want eradicate btb then you have get rid of all the badgers in that area then gamma test everything. Ain't gonna happen.

 

[vantage]

Problem is , the more your cows are tested the more they become desensitised to the test. So more annual testing is not always the answer.

New one on me!
Agree about Brock.

 

[Cuthbert]

2 reactors and 2 ir during Fridays TB test, this was our first 60 day test after having two other reactors in August.

There were tears in Friday and no doubt there will be some more when we load them up in the morning.

Absolutely gutted to lose these girls.View attachment 843711

Very sad news. I still don’t know why the NFU or anyone else doesn’t publish this side of tb right up to their death and show what actually happens to these quality animals instead of banging on about the poor badgers.

 

[Princess Pooper]

About 25 miles away, we haven't had any proven case yet, no lesions, no cultures if they find either we automatically have to blood test.

What are people finding when they blood test?

Losing 5%?

We had a good correlation between skin and bloods. Had a horrendous breakdown in 2015 including many with lesions, I do firmly believe that bloods helped us go clear again in 8 months.

 

[sidjon]

We had a good correlation between skin and bloods. Had a horrendous breakdown in 2015 including many with lesions, I do firmly believe that bloods helped us go clear again in 8 months.

How many cattle with lesions did they find with the gamma on your herd? And how many were found on skin test?

 

[The Agrarian]

But the public won't appreciate how rare an EX95 is, and far less would they care.

 

[Grazer]

With all the false positives you get, I think your crazy to consider annual testing a sensible idea.

 

[Princess Pooper]

How many cattle with lesions did they find with the gamma on your herd? And how many were found on skin test?

Annual test so obviously skin; - 3 reactors (all found to have lesions) & 16 inconclusives in i/c heifer group, plus 8 IR cows, all the IRS went as reactors later; 21 of them as a result of the first test being regraded under severe interpretation (due to the lesions in the first ones). The rest were reactors on the first SIT. Many of these also had lesions. The first SIT 2 months later was bloods and skin. 6 skin reactors (included 3 of those IRS from first test). Of these 6, 5 were also gamma positive. Only one was gamma positive but not skin positive. At our next test, we had no skin reactors, but 3 gamma positive. At our final SIT we did not need a gamma test and all skin clear. We started with 143 cattle and ended up losing 34 animals, none of them culls and nearly all in-calf heifers or young cows carrying sexed semen at 5-6 months pregnancy. We were a closed herd and I believe our herd pattern of skin/blood positives was a classic example of how it SHOULD work, when exposed to a single incidence of infection, with the herd not throwing many false positives to gamma but enabling us to clear the breakdown quicker. Attributed by APHA to badgers.

 

[Princess Pooper]

With all the false positives you get, I think your crazy to consider annual testing a sensible idea.

I don't think we've ever had a false positive!

 

[sidjon]

Annual test so obviously skin; - 3 reactors (all found to have lesions) & 16 inconclusives in i/c heifer group, plus 8 IR cows, all the IRS went as reactors later; 21 of them as a result of the first test being regraded under severe interpretation (due to the lesions in the first ones). The rest were reactors on the first SIT. Many of these also had lesions. The first SIT 2 months later was bloods and skin. 6 skin reactors (included 3 of those IRS from first test). Of these 6, 5 were also gamma positive. Only one was gamma positive but not skin positive. At our next test, we had no skin reactors, but 3 gamma positive. At our final SIT we did not need a gamma test and all skin clear. We started with 143 cattle and ended up losing 34 animals, none of them culls and nearly all in-calf heifers or young cows carrying sexed semen at 5-6 months pregnancy. We were a closed herd and I believe our herd pattern of skin/blood positives was a classic example of how it SHOULD work, when exposed to a single incidence of infection, with the herd not throwing many false positives to gamma but enabling us to clear the breakdown quicker. Attributed by APHA to badgers.

Thanks for the info, am worried gamma will leave us with a very small herd or none as, we're having walled up lesions found at last test, (they all had reactions to the skin test, but not IRs).

 

[lazy farmer]

With all the false positives you get, I think your crazy to consider annual testing a sensible idea.

Wow now there’s a lack of understanding right there !
Just because an animal whom fails a skin test doesnt have lesions does not mean she didn’t have Tb. I am far more worried about the 20% the test doesn’t find.

 

[jimmer]

To put it into context
If they hadnt filled guantanamo with suspected terrorists who knows what may have happened

 

[Blue.]

I don't think we've ever had a false positive!

I had two about 10 years ago,crap vet got the guns mixed up and cost me two cows and a lot of unnecessary hassle testing when we didn’t need to.

 

[Ducati899]

On our blood tests we had a load of young animals fail which had never been out and was told by ministry vet that they would be false positives and you have to expect a certain % of them in the gamma tests

 

[sidjon]

On our blood tests we had a load of young animals fail which had never been out and was told by ministry vet that they would be false positives and you have to expect a certain % of them in the gamma tests

1 in 30 is what their quoting for gamma testing for false positives

 

[organicguy]

With all the false positives you get, I think your crazy to consider annual testing a sensible idea.

Only 3 in 1000 false positive, may not have lesions but have been EXPOSED to bTB and could go on to develop it.

 

[gone up the hill]

I had two about 10 years ago,crap vet got the guns mixed up and cost me two cows and a lot of unnecessary hassle testing when we didn’t need to.

What evidence have you got to back up this claim that the vet mixed up the guns?

 

[Blue.]

What evidence have you got to back up this claim that the vet mixed up the guns?

because he wasn’t sure and he was a dipsh1t.