Geronimo.

[matthew]

I'm glad Useless Eustice has confirmed that the Alpaca society's favourite blood test, is Enferplex, which although it has very high specificity - so only 0.34 per cent are false postives, it is rubbish on sensitivity. Even with a priming antigen, it will miss around a one third of positive cases, and without it, up to half.

You have to wonder at the collective brain power who made that decision. Or Defra's for licensing it.

 

[Muck Spreader]

Alpacas seem to be riddled with bTB the world over presumably due to the difficulty in testing. Did this lady recover from her bTB?

Cornish alpaca TB campaigner Dianne Summers has disease

A Cornish alpaca owner, who received an award for her campaign for compulsory TB testing of the animals, contracts the illness herself.

www.bbc.com

If I rember correctly this TB was introduced from Stock purchased in Norway?

Alpacas culled in TB outbreak in Sussex

Hundreds of alpacas are culled at a farm in Sussex after testing positive for bovine tuberculosis.

www.bbc.com

 

[matthew]

Alpacas seem to be riddled with bTB the world over presumably due to the difficulty in testing. Did this lady recover from her bTB?

Cornish alpaca TB campaigner Dianne Summers has disease

A Cornish alpaca owner, who received an award for her campaign for compulsory TB testing of the animals, contracts the illness herself.

www.bbc.com

If I rember correctly this TB was introduced from Stock purchased in Norway?

Alpacas culled in TB outbreak in Sussex

Hundreds of alpacas are culled at a farm in Sussex after testing positive for bovine tuberculosis.

www.bbc.com

Unless the medics operate, in a case as serious as Diane's, then she will not recover, without the fist sized lesion in her lung removed. That sfter years of evil drug therapy. Afaik, she has not had that operation yet. So TB is latent. i.e walled up, and dormant. For now.

The breakdown at Alpacas of America, was a bad one. But at the time they lost over 400 animals, Defra's count of primary samples (not bodies) totalled 17. The rest had just 'disappeared'.

More here:

Alpacas culled after outbreak of bovine TB

Hundreds of alpacas have had to be slaughtered after contracting bovine TB.

www.theargus.co.uk

The disappeared:

The 'disappeared'.

The posts below and here highlighted the difference between the figures which Defra produce to illustrate tuberculosis overspill into other...

bovinetb.blogspot.com

Not sure where the Brighton outbreak began. But we (GB) have certainly caused a few ructions by exporting alpacas abroad, which have subsequently been found with TB.

 

[BrianV]

Perhaps someone should point out the irony to the general public of an alpaca which will never come in contact with cattle being forcibly destroyed whilst farmers are forced to turn out their cattle into fields with TB infected badgers which the government consider quite acceptable

 

[gone up the hill]

Perhaps someone should point out the irony to the general public of an alpaca which will never come in contact with cattle being forcibly destroyed whilst farmers are forced to turn out their cattle into fields with TB infected badgers which the government consider quite acceptable

Actually the government say that you should not let cattle come into contact with badgers.

You should ( according to the Gov ) fence off any area that the badgers occupy/ travel across and restrict cattle to areas that the badgers do not occupy/ travel across.

Ie the badgers should have free reign and the cattle should live around the badgers, some talk that all farmers will have to badger fence their entire boundary's going forwards, quite where they then think the badgers will live seems to have been missed!

 

[Cowabunga]

The difference in the treatment of this lady and her Alpaca is in stark contrast with what happened to Mr Brunt, not far from me, some months ago, when a whole army of officials and assassins arrived at his farm early in the morning to round up one cow and kill it. This was only a few weeks after it tested positive, not four bloody years!!!!!

Heifer shot after police enter Welsh dairy farm with TB order - Farmers Weekly

The heifer at the centre of a row between a dairy farmer and the Welsh government over bovine TB has been slaughtered after an early morning swoop by

www.fwi.co.uk

I think he has just about given up on cows as a result of the above trauma. Can you blame him?

 

[Bramble]

Actually the government say that you should not let cattle come into contact with badgers.

You should ( according to the Gov ) fence off any area that the badgers occupy/ travel across and restrict cattle to areas that the badgers do not occupy/ travel across.

Ie the badgers should have free reign and the cattle should live around the badgers, some talk that all farmers will have to badger fence their entire boundary's going forwards, quite where they then think the badgers will live seems to have been missed!

Had a similar discussion with a state vet recently. Their advise was too fence the badgers in to keep them separate from cattle. The vet seemed quite happy to starve/deny the badgers water, but was less keen on humane culling.

Completely ridiculous!!!!

 

[Tarw Coch]

Had a similar discussion with a state vet recently. Their advise was too fence the badgers in to keep them separate from cattle. The vet seemed quite happy to starve/deny the badgers water, but was less keen on humane culling.

Completely ridiculous!!!!

Wouldn’t they just dig themselves out?
They seem quite good at digging

 

[jondear]

This reminds me of that calf Blair reprieved during F&M.

One cute creature -saved
Thousands of others killed -no one gives a fudge

It's just a sheep with a long neck ffs!

 

[Bramble]

Wouldn’t they just dig themselves out?
They seem quite good at digging

I suggested that might happen, the response was to dig in some chicken netting to stop them getting under any electric fencing. Do I just keep digging down till I hit the sett as well???

STUPID POLICY THOUGHT UP BY STUPID PEOPLE. Perhaps those in charge should be asking themselves why has TB now become endemic in this country, and what are other countries around the world who successfully control it doing differently to us in the U.K.

 

[matthew]

Wouldn’t they just dig themselves out?
They seem quite good at digging

You'd need a long reach back hoe and h/d chain link turned under by about a metre / yard. Buried to 10'. And don't forget the gates. Concrete underneath and no slats.

The badger pound at AHVLA Weybridge is 15' deep concrete.

Fence 'em out - fence 'em in? Bio security in practise.

Defra advise farmers it is their responsibility to keep cattle and badgers apart and any disease compensation may depend on it. But how prac...

bovinetb.blogspot.com

and

Nothing if not persistent

We are grateful to the South West TB advisory group, for sight of a video clip, taken at Bicton college, of their attempts to exclude bad...

bovinetb.blogspot.com

 

[Exfarmer]

Had a similar discussion with a state vet recently. Their advise was too fence the badgers in to keep them separate from cattle. The vet seemed quite happy to starve/deny the badgers water, but was less keen on humane culling.

Completely ridiculous!!!!

you will need a pretty good fence to keep an animal in, which both burrows and climbs!

 

[Jerry]

On radio 2 now. …..

 

[Mark Hatton]

Latest from DEFRA on this:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1424742607893237766

 

[The Ruminant]

Someone said that Packham et al were forming a human shield to save the alpaca - did it work?

 

[teslacoils]

Might just be me, but if this were a cow surely it would have been culled by now? Not sure why DEFRA is trying to fact check the test - surely if it's an animal that is required to be tested, and failed, then the law requires it culling?

 

[Cowabunga]

They went in gang-handed to round up and cull Mr Brunt's heifer at dawn. No faffing about. Job done. This one they have faffed about so much, rather than get the job done, that the poor animal has become a national celebrity and a 'cause'. Why aren't our cows an equal 'cause'. The animal caught it from an infected wild animal, so why do they not eliminate the vector so that Geronimo wasn't infected in the first place?

 

[Bramble]

Perhaps all the people who have got behind this ‘cause’ think that farmers don’t care about the loss of their cows?? They should go and read some of the farmers experiences of the Foot and Mouth cull.

Everytime I lose one to TB there’s a pang of guilt and sadness. Watched over 150 animals go in the last 5 years off this farm, 70 years worth of breeding gone and several of our best cow bloodlines have been lost to this disease. TB is a death (of a business) by a thousand cuts

 

[primmiemoo]

Perhaps all the people who have got behind this ‘cause’ think that farmers don’t care about the loss of their cows?? They should go and read some of the farmers experiences of the Foot and Mouth cull.

Everytime I lose one to TB there’s a pang of guilt and sadness. Watched over 150 animals go in the last 5 years off this farm, 70 years worth of breeding gone and several of our best cow bloodlines have been lost to this disease. TB is a death (of a business) by a thousand cuts

Sympathy like. It felt like a dose of hell when my lot went. They weren't pets, but they were close to my heart.

 

[Exfarmer]

Sadly the general public has no idea of the strength of feelings, most farmers have towards their stock. They have been fed far too much Hollywood films to think that farmers actually care for their animals.