Badgers - the spinal fullution

[soapsud]

What's yours?

Mine is NOT waiting for better testing or vaccines or culling but is instead, practical & physical. Some may think it fanciful but it has merit for further proof on badger TB carrier evidence.

I propose beef cattle holidays to SFI grazing to the arable east coast. Think: cow version of matching stock to location like AirBnB. The east has fewer badgers because there are fewer woods. TB survives in the dark and damp for up to 4 months so that should nullify infection from soil back on the home farm. Dairy cows are inside for the winter so their farms should have lower risk.

And no, I don't operate a livestock transport business.

Which counties could start trialling such a thing - given we know where the hot spots are?

I suggest a region of Dorset to Suffolk for 5 months next year.

Advantages? Think of the fodder you could crop over a summer.

 

[DrWazzock]

We are festooned with badgers in this part of the east. My vet tells me the badgers don’t have TB here yet. But if it got here it would spread rampantly. We’ve also ever increasing numbers of feral deer off various breeds despite my cousins best efforts. Lots of cattle come here locally for summer grazing. To me that’s a recipe for spreading TB right across the country but what do I know. Folks here with high health largely closed herds are struggling to keep TB out because of import of large numbers of stock over summer.
IMO the whole system needs a rethink. Conventional livestock markets need a rethink. Mixing stock at these hubs is just a recipe for disease spread IMO. We are still as an industry quite medieval in terms of biosecurity, isolation, testing monitoring, traceabiiity and biosecurity im sorry to say. Try tracing a diseased animal you’ve bought in back to the original farm it came from. Can’t tell you that as it’s a data protection issue even though we have the sarf tag and flock number. Hesds in sand and nobody what’s to know. Just keep churning out breeding stock with iceberg diseases through markets and let the poor beggar at the other end pick up the cost of buying in infection.

 

[topground]

We are festooned with badgers in this part of the east. My vet tells me the badgers don’t have TB here yet. But if it got here it would spread rampantly. We’ve also ever increasing numbers of feral deer off various breeds despite my cousins best efforts. Lots of cattle come here locally for summer grazing. To me that’s a recipe for spreading TB right across the country but what do I know. Folks here with high health largely closed herds are struggling to keep TB out because of import of large numbers of stock over summer.
IMO the whole system needs a rethink. Conventional livestock markets need a rethink. Mixing stock at these hubs is just a recipe for disease spread IMO. We are still as an industry quite medieval in terms of biosecurity, isolation, testing monitoring, traceabiiity and biosecurity im sorry to say. Try tracing a diseased animal you’ve bought in back to the original farm it came from. Can’t tell you that as it’s a data protection issue even though we have the sarf tag and flock number. Hesds in sand and nobody what’s to know. Just keep churning out breeding stock with iceberg diseases through markets and let the poor beggar at the other end pick up the cost of buying in infection.

Pre movement testing before movement to a market unless going for slaughter where meat inspection would pick up lesions.
Take out the livestock markets and hand control by taking out competition to the supermarket robber baron cartel.
Thanks for your input!

 

[penntor]

Cattle should be traceable back to the farm of birth, all the information is on it's passport.

 

[Yale]

But, but, but, the powers that be are quite happy how the destruction of livestock farming in the UK is panning out. It’s all part of the elitist plan.

 

[yellowbelly]

What's yours?

Turns out our solution is a bunch of agressive stock tups....

..they appear to have bludgeoned this stripey bu99er to death while they've been at a loose end this summer

Not sure if they ate the rest of it themselves or some passing crows or buzzards have tucked into it

 

[soapsud]

OK Lincolnshire is out.
Anyone confirm which arable SFI options that can be grazed over the summer?
What percentage of Cambridgeshire or Norfolk is in SFI!
What about Essex?

 

[soapsud]

We are festooned with badgers in this part of the east. My vet tells me the badgers don’t have TB here yet. But if it got here it would spread rampantly. We’ve also ever increasing numbers of feral deer off various breeds despite my cousins best efforts. Lots of cattle come here locally for summer grazing. To me that’s a recipe for spreading TB right across the country but what do I know. Folks here with high health largely closed herds are struggling to keep TB out because of import of large numbers of stock over summer.
IMO the whole system needs a rethink. Conventional livestock markets need a rethink. Mixing stock at these hubs is just a recipe for disease spread IMO. We are still as an industry quite medieval in terms of biosecurity, isolation, testing monitoring, traceabiiity and biosecurity im sorry to say. Try tracing a diseased animal you’ve bought in back to the original farm it came from. Can’t tell you that as it’s a data protection issue even though we have the sarf tag and flock number. Hesds in sand and nobody what’s to know. Just keep churning out breeding stock with iceberg diseases through markets and let the poor beggar at the other end pick up the cost of buying in infection.

Any stock movements would necessarily be suitably pre-tested. And tested again before return. It's not about turning the whole country into a hot zone!

It's to prove existing hot areas, if rested from cattle, will have badger populations continue to carry residual bTB even in the temporary absence of those cattle. We know it's transferable across species - from wildlife to farm animals. Even badger latrines are testable.

It will mean cage traps and testing, before and after, control groups, the whole caboodle .

It'll mean DEFRA funding if, that is, the Brian May promoted research has any affect on the decision makers in Whitehall. That means NFU lobbying.

 

[neilo]

How about we send the Welsh Govt on holiday to the East of England instead?
That way you'll get more trees and we can have a badger cull. Win, win.

 

[yellowbelly]

How about we send the Welsh Govt on holiday to the East of England instead?

If you're sending 'em to Cleethorpes, tell 'em to bring their hiking boots if they want a paddle - when the tide's out they'll have to walk half way to Yorkshire 🏖

 

[DrWazzock]

If premovement testing and livestock markets biosecurity and cattle wagon washout worked we wouldn’t be seeing herd breakdowns here.
My cousin can no longer keep his high health closed herd at one of his farms due to the now influx’s of summer grazers to the area and resulting breakdowns, which necessitated us going down to 12 month testing for most of the time even though we had badgers and our own closed herd.
As an industry of wheeler dealers only really interested in the coin we aren’t doing ourselves any favours. It would be sensible to keep movements down ourselves and to avoid sending breeding stock through markets. Abbatoirs don’t decide breeding stock prices. In fact even with deadstock you aren’t obliged to sell at the price offered. Just say no thanks and put the phone down. They’ll be back with a better offer next week. Is that any worse than selling to the cartel who’ve divvied up the lots with auctioneer in the cafe before the auction even starts?

 

[soapsud]

It's alright Doc, Dorset isn't sending any probs your way - I'm only suggesting pure arable converted to SFI - not the Wolds, nor your sands.

 

[Dry Rot]

Putting bovine Tb aside for one moment, do the powers that be really think that the badger population will self regulate without any control?

An apex predator with no natural predators of its own? Put the badger on the same status as the fox, introduce licensing if they must, but the fact is blatantly obvious that they need CONTROL, regardless of any disease. Disease follows where there is over crowding and the pressures of excess population.

 

[DrWazzock]

It's alright Doc, Dorset isn't sending any probs your way - I'm only suggesting pure arable converted to SFI - not the Wolds, nor your sands.

Traditionally cattle come east to be fattened in yards. That’s not so bad. But more are coming for summer grazing gathered up from markets in the west in varied and mixed batches. It might be alright for arable farmers wanting stewardship land grazed off as they aren’t really concerned if there’s a breakdown but it impacts on high health closed herds here that have taken a lifetime to build up. When we had cattle, we went from 4 year testing to almost continual annual testing with never a positive result thankfully, due to TB found in testing of visiting herds. My cousin lost a few of his best animals and had to give up cattle on one farm next door to itinerant grazers. He’s now much reduced his herd as the risk and hassle due to continual breakdowns in itinerant summer grazers makes it hardly possible to maintain high health status, never mind the loss of breeding stock itself.
I think the whole industry needs a rethink and can understand what you are saying but I’d say less movement, less mixing and isolation and containment should be the watchwords not mixing it all about.
I know people like markets but they are a busted flush if you are looking for disease free stock IMO. We’ve learned that the hard way. For all the RT box ticking and traceability crap, livestock disease control isn’t fit for purpose in this country and it must cause farmers millions in losses annually.

 

[DrWazzock]

Putting bovine Tb aside for one moment, do the powers that be really think that the badger population will self regulate without any control?

An apex predator with no natural predators of its own? Put the badger on the same status as the fox, introduce licensing if they must, but the fact is blatantly obvious that they need CONTROL, regardless of any disease. Disease follows where there is over crowding and the pressures of excess population.

Of course you are right. But we will spend millions skirting round the fundamental truth you state here.

 

[gone up the hill]

Traditionally cattle come east to be fattened in yards. That’s not so bad. But more are coming for summer grazing gathered up from markets in the west in varied and mixed batches. It might be alright for arable farmers wanting stewardship land grazed off as they aren’t really concerned if there’s a breakdown but it impacts on high health closed herds here that have taken a lifetime to build up. When we had cattle, we went from 4 year testing to almost continual annual testing with never a positive result thankfully, due to TB found in testing of visiting herds. My cousin lost a few of his best animals and had to give up cattle on one farm next door to itinerant grazers. He’s now much reduced his herd as the risk and hassle due to continual breakdowns in itinerant summer grazers makes it hardly possible to maintain high health status, never mind the loss of breeding stock itself.
I think the whole industry needs a rethink and can understand what you are saying but I’d say less movement, less mixing and isolation and containment should be the watchwords not mixing it all about.
I know people like markets but they are a busted flush if you are looking for disease free stock IMO. We’ve learned that the hard way. For all the RT box ticking and traceability crap, livestock disease control isn’t fit for purpose in this country and it must cause farmers millions in losses annually.

With the greatest respect dr wazzock you have no idea about the livestock industry and how prices are set!

This spring for example, deadweight prices are set weekly from liveweight prices, the higher the liveweight price this week the higher the deadweight price will be! take lambs this winter/spring, deadweight contracts were there for £6.80 for new season lambs, trade took off like a rocket in the livestock markets and ended up so high that deadweight had to jump to £9.20 for several weeks to keep up with liveweight prices, that is about £50 a lamb! if we had no markets you would have been looking at about £6.50 deadweight then and now deadweight would be at least a £1 kilo head less or about £20 a lamb.

Look at the pig job to see what happens when livestock markets are side lined or the cattle job in Ireland.

As for TB spread, you are blaming cattle movements, well why are you ignoring the issue of the thousands of badgers moved by welfare etc charity's from TB hotspots to clean areas like your part of the country? do you not think these badgers could actually be to blame for most of the cattle TB in your part of the country??

Livestock markets are a quick and efficent and safe way to trade livestock, without them the UK beef and sheep industry will be finished .

You moan enough about the corn price being really crap and no doubt if you got your way you would end up on here moaning like hell selling prime lambs for £100 or less a head!

 

[Headless chicken]

Putting bovine Tb aside for one moment, do the powers that be really think that the badger population will self regulate without any control?

An apex predator with no natural predators of its own? Put the badger on the same status as the fox, introduce licensing if they must, but the fact is blatantly obvious that they need CONTROL, regardless of any disease. Disease follows where there is over crowding and the pressures of excess population.

This is my theory on reinfection. Badgers catch tb, sick ones are booted out they then roam around and spread to the cows. The cows spread it amongst themselves. Sick badgers and or sets die a horrendous death. Population has been reduced so there is more food available. Badgers keep further away from the cows because they can. Excess food allows population growth pushing them out into the previously sick badgers territory meaning they get TB and the cycle continues

 

[soapsud]

This is my theory on reinfection. Badgers catch tb, sick ones are booted out they then roam around and spread to the cows. The cows spread it amongst themselves. Sick badgers and or sets die a horrendous death. Population has been reduced so there is more food available. Badgers keep further away from the cows because they can. Excess food allows population growth pushing them out into the previously sick badgers territory meaning they get TB and the cycle continues

As others have said, badgers eat ears of corn and maize cobs. If badgers only had hedgehogs and bumblebee nests in the offing they'd soon move on. Farmers know they're feeding their badgers. We often see them here drinking from water troughs but we don't put feed out for them.

 

[hendrebc]

Putting bovine Tb aside for one moment, do the powers that be really think that the badger population will self regulate without any control?

An apex predator with no natural predators of its own? Put the badger on the same status as the fox, introduce licensing if they must, but the fact is blatantly obvious that they need CONTROL, regardless of any disease. Disease follows where there is over crowding and the pressures of excess population.

That's right but badgers aren't an apex predator. They're second line down am intermediate predator or whatever the term is like a fox. They would be eaten by wolves, big cats and bears, even people, if they were about and allowed to do so. They aren't meant to be allowed to breed with no controls they have always been controlled via larger predators. Be that by being hunted or through competition for their own food.
We have neither if those things foe them now. Removing protection for badgers and having a badger season over winter would be hugely beneficial for wildlife in areas where there are too many of them. That's without bringing up bovine TB.
We have one or two here. They don't cause any damage really you hardly know they're here. 20 or 30 would be a different story.

 

[hendrebc]

If premovement testing and livestock markets biosecurity and cattle wagon washout worked we wouldn’t be seeing herd breakdowns here.
My cousin can no longer keep his high health closed herd at one of his farms due to the now influx’s of summer grazers to the area and resulting breakdowns, which necessitated us going down to 12 month testing for most of the time even though we had badgers and our own closed herd.
As an industry of wheeler dealers only really interested in the coin we aren’t doing ourselves any favours. It would be sensible to keep movements down ourselves and to avoid sending breeding stock through markets. Abbatoirs don’t decide breeding stock prices. In fact even with deadstock you aren’t obliged to sell at the price offered. Just say no thanks and put the phone down. They’ll be back with a better offer next week. Is that any worse than selling to the cartel who’ve divvied up the lots with auctioneer in the cafe before the auction even starts?

If you have deer in the area then it's just as likely, if not more so, that tb came from them. It's becoming a big problem in North East Wales the tb isn't in the badgers, well it probably is, bit in the deer as well. The deer are owned or on land owned by estates that won't let anyone shoot them....
Pre movement testing is pretty reliable if done right.