Help/suggestions please, tb issues

[Jdunn55]

Just before I start, my cows are my life and are the reason I get up every day, I cannot live without them and know them as if they were my children so please no suggestions of just getting rid of them.

That being said we have gone down with tb today and lost 9 out of our 160 suckler herd. 1 18 month old steer, 1 12 month old heifer, 4 cows die within the next month (these will stay until they calve) and 3 freshly calved cows. We have taken the calves off the fresh cows and will hand rear them.

I can't stand the thought of losing a load of cows every 60 days and not being able to do anything about it. I have been relief milking for someone up until this week (they have just started up robots) and they have lost well over 100 to TB and I can't contemplate having the same happen.

Does anyone know if anyone houses suckler cows all year round? It's just an idea at this point but I can't see why it wouldn't work - other than it costing more in terms of labour, straw and plastic/net. Obviously it isn't my preferred choice of system but I would rather this than lose cows to tb.
Any other ideas would be appreciated, my other option as I see it is to start dairying. The main problem with this - other than initial outlay of money - would be my dad. He's an ex-dairy farmer (stopped in 2006) and does not want to milk cows. Theres two processors down our way screaming for more milk and I'm wondering if this could be an option in a housed system. It's always been my dream to milk and I want to enter dairying at some point anyway but was planning on a waiting a year or two.

Just to add we are in cornwall, have 80 breeding cows (now 70) and keep all followers until 18 months old. Do all our own tractor work except spraying and do some outside contracting with our baler and wrapper. We have also bought 60 breeding ewes this year for the first time and are planning on lambing them in February.

Thanks James

 

[HarryB97]

It surprises me you have a local processor who is desperate for milk, over supply is the reason the job is crap so I would avoid that idea. Housing them all year will only loose you money. Start by fully badger proofing your yard then that deals with 6 months of the year and is the easiest and cheapest option. Badger fencing round your fields is the only option for grazing but it isn't cheap! If you dont want to dig net underground then horse net tight to the ground will sort 99% of issues. You could otherwise reduce your suckler herd to a few dozen cows and set up an AFU to utilise your sheds year round finishing stock. With the way the beef job is and the hammering red meat is getting it may be best to do nothing for a year as hard as that is and see where the job is in 12 months. Do you feed cake at grazing or have sets on your land?

 

[Al R]

Not trying to put a downer on it but I know some indoor only herds that have as much TB as outside herds, you can’t control badgers urinating and excreting on grass silage in the field, maize plants, cereals/straw etc..

 

[Samcowman]

I can’t see housing sucklers all year as being a goer I’m afraid.
Did the reactors graze particular fields or were they spread all over. If so is it possible to not graze those fields.
As has been said badger proof your sheds also lifting water troughs up out in the fields above badger reach will help also not feeding cattle any hard food and mineral tubs outside which will attract the badgers. Fence off latrines will also help.
It’s impossible to stop contact out in the fields but you need to do as much as you can to discourage them.
Ring the TB advisory service they will be able to advise as well.

 

[gone up the hill]

Keeping suckler cows indoors 365 days of the year will just lead to no end of other health issues/ problems and is a non goer!

Going into dairy wont help on the TB issue because they will still get TB.

Reality is ( and I don't like to say this ) but with the number of reactors you had today then TB is deep rooted in your herd and you may well end up losing 50% + of your herd before you go clear!

Your options are :

Just keep buying in cows as fast as you lose them ( when you can get a licence )

Replace lost sucklers with bought in store cattle to keep numbers up.

Fine to house store cattle that you are finishing all year around unlike suckler cows but don't under estimate the workload having all your cattle housed 365 days of the year as the work load is just relentless let alone the costs of doing this which you will find will go thru the roof!

 

[Samcowman]

As a first breakdown you won’t be allowed to buy in unless you have had your first short interval test and when you do you will only get 50% compensation for them so ideally they either need to be cheaply bought or there for the short term so less chances of reacting

 

[Hfd Cattle]

Don't panic ...... while the initial breakdown in TB is hard and the compensation crap you still have the most of your livestock . There is every chance you will go clear next time ....plenty do but we only really hear about the ones that don't ! Get a license as soon as you can to replace the reactors cows ( else the money gets swallowed up into other things !) look up and chin up . If you need to sell stores you will after a time be able to sell to an orange market or an AFU .

 

[roscoe erf]

I know its hard but I wouldn't panic too much just yet we are in a real tb hot spot here so see it first hand mind you the welsh government handle things a bit differently id wait for the next test before doing anything you may regret housing all year is going to cause as many problems as your trying to solve

 

[Treg]

Sorry to here that @Jdunn55
As others have said don't panic , know several herds that lose a big number but go clear again.
The valley over had Tb went up through the valley affecting several farms & they all went clear again.
What are your thoughts on where it came from?

 

[Dog Bowl]

In a TB hotspot here. Both farms shut down with TB currently. Been in and out of shut down for the last decade.

Has anyone ever put this 'badger fencing', as quoted in an above post, into practice and ring fenced their grazing ground? I'm curious. Got some stock fencing to replace so if this is a viable alternative I'd do it!

 

[primmiemoo]

Sorry from here, too, @Jdunn55 . It's horrible when it comes out of the blue.

Echoing the others in saying don't panic. Having an Advisor out should reassure about what you can do to deter Brock with minimal outlay.

If, like my herd was, yours was a case of a wandering badger that was a "super-excreter" of bTB, the chances are it has long gone (possibly died a horrible death itself, poor thing).

 

[kill]

Reality is ( and I don't like to say this ) but with the number of reactors you had today then TB is deep rooted in your herd and you may well end up losing 50% + of your herd before you go clear!

Hang on a minute as these animals may not even have legions at slaughter so it's remotely possible it's a false alarm.
If legions are found at slaughter then I am afraid that it will be GAMMA blood testing shortly afterwards if you're in a cull area 2 years+ (normally within 2 months) and then you know the real score as alot fly through that with very little loses but I wasn't so lucky this spring .
But as of 2 weeks ago we are now clear

 

[som farmer]

heard with cull and gamma test, you should be clean, we have gone down. first time, testing 19 nov as first 60 day test, had the advisory visit, and yes it's helpful around the buildings, but outside? we have 190 acres, with 18 setts, they were surprised when they checked for cull. How can you take measures for that no ? 2nd cull, number culled 20 % of last year, so, as, no animal taken for tb has had lesions, we have everything crossed

 

[som farmer]

heard with cull and gamma test, you should be clean, we have gone down. first time, testing 19 nov as first 60 day test, had the advisory visit, and yes it's helpful around the buildings, but outside? we have 190 acres, with 18 setts, they were surprised when they checked for cull. How can you take measures for that no ? 2nd cull, number culled 20 % of last year, so, as, no animal taken for tb has had lesions, we have everything crossed

Dunno what happened there !!
next test mid jan, start calving mid feb, if we fail, that will be a problem, what do we do with the calves ?
this may well be the last year we will be able to shoot them. The cost implications of having to rear 2 hundred + calves a year, is scary. We are looking at our breeding policy, to reduce no of s##t calves, but with xbred cows, whatever you do, some will allways be s##t.

 

[Werzle]

Just before I start, my cows are my life and are the reason I get up every day, I cannot live without them and know them as if they were my children so please no suggestions of just getting rid of them.

That being said we have gone down with tb today and lost 9 out of our 160 suckler herd. 1 18 month old steer, 1 12 month old heifer, 4 cows die within the next month (these will stay until they calve) and 3 freshly calved cows. We have taken the calves off the fresh cows and will hand rear them.

I can't stand the thought of losing a load of cows every 60 days and not being able to do anything about it. I have been relief milking for someone up until this week (they have just started up robots) and they have lost well over 100 to TB and I can't contemplate having the same happen.

Does anyone know if anyone houses suckler cows all year round? It's just an idea at this point but I can't see why it wouldn't work - other than it costing more in terms of labour, straw and plastic/net. Obviously it isn't my preferred choice of system but I would rather this than lose cows to tb.
Any other ideas would be appreciated, my other option as I see it is to start dairying. The main problem with this - other than initial outlay of money - would be my dad. He's an ex-dairy farmer (stopped in 2006) and does not want to milk cows. Theres two processors down our way screaming for more milk and I'm wondering if this could be an option in a housed system. It's always been my dream to milk and I want to enter dairying at some point anyway but was planning on a waiting a year or two.

Just to add we are in cornwall, have 80 breeding cows (now 70) and keep all followers until 18 months old. Do all our own tractor work except spraying and do some outside contracting with our baler and wrapper. We have also bought 60 breeding ewes this year for the first time and are planning on lambing them in February.

Thanks James

You love your sucklers cows but wondered if going into dairying would be the answer? are you planning on milking the sucklers? Goodluck with that. Bull some homebred hfrs , calm down and carry on. Apart from culling wildlife and keeping feed and licks etc out of reach there is nothing you can do but tb test your way out of it. Housing cattle all year round might spread tb quicker because of closer contact.

 

[Dry Rot]

I know very little about cattle or tb, but quite horrific to read this thread. 18 setts on 190 acres! The Europeans, who have an open season for badgers, must think we are stark raving mad! So sad.

 

[gone up the hill]

Hang on a minute as these animals may not even have legions at slaughter so it's remotely possible it's a false alarm.
If legions are found at slaughter then I am afraid that it will be GAMMA blood testing shortly afterwards if you're in a cull area 2 years+ (normally within 2 months) and then you know the real score as alot fly through that with very little loses but I wasn't so lucky this spring .
But as of 2 weeks ago we are now clear

The OP had NINE reactors out of 160 odd cattle, there is NO way that is a false alarm, the herd has been exposed to the TB bacteria for sure, best hope is that this was only recently and it has cleared up most of the infection but suffice to say with the skin test that is very rarely the case!

Just because they don't have lesions on kill does NOT mean they don't have TB.

Blood test is just a cattle killer, no if's or buts about it!

No end of herds within a few miles of me have/ are going down with TB either currently or in the last few weeks and that is herds that have been clear of TB for 2+ years and in a C area to boot!... not good at all!

 

[som farmer]

I know very little about cattle or tb, but quite horrific to read this thread. 18 setts on 190 acres! The Europeans, who have an open season for badgers, must think we are stark raving mad! So sad.

interestingly, 16 of those setts were occupied after the cull , but we have had little damage to maize, nor have we seen many, and only accounted for a few this cull. Checking round this autumn, very little sign about, so were these setts 'occupied' by transient badgers ? or, not many left, and been exploring ?

 

[matthew]

@gone up the hill said, Inevitable. ^^^^

Thornbury in the dim and distant past took all the badgers out over a period of months. Cattle all went clear, and stayed clear for at least 12 years.
Roll forward to 1997, a moratorium on culling badgers to prevent the spread of disease and the RBCT launched into a now grossly infected badger population for 8 nights annually.
Even that had a beneficial effect. But it could have been so much better. It was designed to fail.
The current scattered cull areas have to take out 70 per cent of badgers over a similar area (70 - 75 percent of a given area) in 42 nights annually. And patches within them may be vaccinating or refusing to co operate at all.

It’s not berluddy rocket science to discover that breaking up a grossly infected group, then walking away, leaves
Infected individuals and an infected ancestral home, to upspill infection into your cattle.

You can do simplistic things to keep badgers away from cattle when housed, provided your sheds and feed are badger proof, but not much when they graze. Particularly given the amount of bacteria excreted by an infected badger.

Re the testing, the s**t storm of letters is confusing, aggressive, threatening and certainly not in any way joined up - with skin testing or Gamma. And be prepared for the cattle killer, gamma not to screen all the samples meaning a return visit. But worry not, any third time failures are classed as a pass. You could ‘t make it up.
Any failures of APHA are down to you to accommodate, but any leeway you may request is met with threats, involving BPS deductions, prosecution or both.

You may be allowed to calve in cattle close to time, but this should be accompanied with a long veterinary certificate which you pay for. If that is not completed and sent back within 5 working days, the animal will be shot on the farm.
If you calve an animal in, 7 days from the calving date, they’ll shoot her anyway.

You have no case officer to guide you anymore, the system is deliberately fragmented, thoroughly brutal and totally one sided.

Nuff said.

 

[exmoor dave]

Just before I start, my cows are my life and are the reason I get up every day, I cannot live without them and know them as if they were my children so please no suggestions of just getting rid of them.

That being said we have gone down with tb today and lost 9 out of our 160 suckler herd. 1 18 month old steer, 1 12 month old heifer, 4 cows die within the next month (these will stay until they calve) and 3 freshly calved cows. We have taken the calves off the fresh cows and will hand rear them.

I can't stand the thought of losing a load of cows every 60 days and not being able to do anything about it. I have been relief milking for someone up until this week (they have just started up robots) and they have lost well over 100 to TB and I can't contemplate having the same happen.

Does anyone know if anyone houses suckler cows all year round? It's just an idea at this point but I can't see why it wouldn't work - other than it costing more in terms of labour, straw and plastic/net. Obviously it isn't my preferred choice of system but I would rather this than lose cows to tb.
Any other ideas would be appreciated, my other option as I see it is to start dairying. The main problem with this - other than initial outlay of money - would be my dad. He's an ex-dairy farmer (stopped in 2006) and does not want to milk cows. Theres two processors down our way screaming for more milk and I'm wondering if this could be an option in a housed system. It's always been my dream to milk and I want to enter dairying at some point anyway but was planning on a waiting a year or two.

Just to add we are in cornwall, have 80 breeding cows (now 70) and keep all followers until 18 months old. Do all our own tractor work except spraying and do some outside contracting with our baler and wrapper. We have also bought 60 breeding ewes this year for the first time and are planning on lambing them in February.

Thanks James

Just remember that if you are going from 12mth testing (assuming that you are?), you are picking up alot of exposure in one test, hence a high number of reactors in one go, unfortunately from experience you're likely to pick a few more up in the next test or two but there is a reasonable chance of going clear again with in a few tests, esp if in a cull zone.

Have a good look at the deer on farm as well, if you have any resident or regularly visiting the farm