Heptavac. Anyone not bother??

[le bon paysan]

I know what you mean, but it's not the same argument. To equate it to the human principal of eugenics makes no sense, since we aren't rearing people for slaughter. But ask, instead, do I think our human population would be better if it were less reliant upon medication and I would give an unequivocal 'yes'.

I think we use too many Antibiotics but I wouldn't want to see kids with smallpox

 

[dogandstick]

Natural selection. I never vaccinated my hebridean and lost alot of lambs in the early two years and a few molly coddled ewes from small holders. now loose virtually nothing (touching wood) - vet said it's common for people stopping vac to loose alot quickly if their farm is wet.... but any replacements should be of a higher resistance, this applies to certain diseases more than others - depends on how easily spread they are - so clos types easy as spread fast from muck and saliva on wet pasture.

Taking that argument to its logical conclusion then you would claim that prior to vaccination all stock were resistant. Why then were there losses that lead the creation of vaccines?

 

[Coximus]

Good question.... personally I'd look at the breeds.... ime (by no means scientific ) hill sheep drafted down from common hills tend to be exposed to more disease and have a crapped diet and aways appear healthier on my land than normal breeding sheep brought in... so I make the asumption that as black loss on hill farms is often in the double percent figures n's is taking place and when taken to a more benign environment they thrive. I may well be totally wrong!

 

[Nithsdale]

How do you select or cull for some genetic resistance (if there is any) to clostridial diseases that only crop up every now and again? Accept sometimes high losses and survival of the fittest?

In a word, yes?


Your sheep will be better for it, in 100 years...

Unless you retire/die and your flock dispersed into a flock which vaccinates

 

[Danllan]

How do you select or cull for some genetic resistance (if there is any) to clostridial diseases that only crop up every now and again? Accept sometimes high losses and survival of the fittest?

I'll be honest enough to say I can't tell you what the figures work out as in re' numbers lost cumulatively over a given period of reasonable length, e.g. thirty years +, in flocks that are vaccinated, and what the cautionary / insurance costs of vaccination work out as against losses in similar flocks over the same period. Nor do I know what proportion will survive one of the periodic outbreaks. However, we all know that some beasts are more resistant than others and it is plain that if this resistance is residually enriched in a given flock due to loss of the others, the flock will be the better for it.

It would be very interesting to hear from someone - assuming there is someone - who has braved the losses and followed such a plan. But braved is the word; I will stick to my principals if it hits here, but I'm not blind to how difficult the situation could / will be; for all I know the desired quality may or may not be epigenetic, which would complicate matters.

And so back to something I have raised before, for such an improvement in the national flock there needs to be help for I individuals hard hit and there needs to be central coordination, clearly Governmental supervision and public money would be ideal. A competent, forward-thinking, proactive, representative body for farming would help too....

I think we use too many Antibiotics but I wouldn't want to see kids with smallpox

And you won't because it was located, encircled and eradicated; but we can't do that with the matter at hand, so we have to follow another course to get to the same ultimate goal.

...Your sheep will be better for it, in 100 years...

Probably not that long, but certainly a generation or two; it is a long term proposal and - as mentioned above - it would best be done on a national basis. We can do this, it just takes some pragmatic thinking and will power from us and Government, hmm...

 

[Nithsdale]

Even if all farmers got on board... some twunt would continue vaccinating - unless the products were outlawed. Then they'd just import.

But drugs companies have too much political power (too many politicians have vested interests in drug companies - hence the push from Westminster for TTIP)...

Sadly it will just never happen.

 

[It was already broken.]

Surely you can only select for resistance if you know the animals selected have been exposed but dealt with the infection internally. How can you know what an individual animal has been exposed to in a flock of hundreds spread across large areas of grazing.

 

[Nithsdale]

Surely you can only select for resistance if you know the animals selected have been exposed but dealt with the infection internally. How can you know what an individual animal has been exposed to in a flock of hundreds spread across large areas of grazing.

Individual recording, like @Tim W does?

 

[neilo]

I'll be honest enough to say I can't tell you what the figures work out as in re' numbers lost cumulatively over a given period of reasonable length, e.g. thirty years +, in flocks that are vaccinated, and what the cautionary / insurance costs of vaccination work out as against losses in similar flocks over the same period. Nor do I know what proportion will survive one of the periodic outbreaks. However, we all know that some beasts are more resistant than others and it is plain that if this resistance is residually enriched in a given flock due to loss of the others, the flock will be the better for it.

It would be very interesting to hear from someone - assuming there is someone - who has braved the losses and followed such a plan. But braved is the word; I will stick to my principals if it hits here, but I'm not blind to how difficult the situation could / will be; for all I know the desired quality may or may not be epigenetic, which would complicate matters.

And so back to something I have raised before, for such an improvement in the national flock there needs to be help for I individuals hard hit and there needs to be central coordination, clearly Governmental supervision and public money would be ideal. A competent, forward-thinking, proactive, representative body for farming would help too....



And you won't because it was located, encircled and eradicated; but we can't do that with the matter at hand, so we have to follow another course to get to the same ultimate goal.



Probably not that long, but certainly a generation or two; it is a long term proposal and - as mentioned above - it would best be done on a national basis. We can do this, it just takes some pragmatic thinking and will power from us and Government, hmm...

Are you really suggesting the NFU should lobby the government to get on board with a plan that entails subjecting the farmed animal population to perfectly (& economically) avoidable suffering and death? Wow.

 

[neilo]

Even if all farmers got on board... some twunt would continue vaccinating - unless the products were outlawed. Then they'd just import.

But drugs companies have too much political power (too many politicians have vested interests in drug companies - hence the push from Westminster for TTIP)...

Sadly it will just never happen.

For as long as I consider it to be economically justified to avoid that animal suffering and loss, I will happily be one of those twunts.

 

[Nithsdale]

Are you really suggesting the NFU should lobby the government to get on board with a plan that entails subjecting the farmed animal population to perfectly (& economically) avoidable suffering and death? Wow.

With the end of subs coming and the joke EU exit, the govt is on the path to inflicting it on us already!

 

[Nithsdale]

For as long as I consider it to be economically justified to avoid that animal suffering and loss, I will happily be one of those twunts.

You know what I mean.

Farmers worse enemy is another farmer - we would never unite.

 

[Danllan]

Are you really suggesting the NFU should lobby the government to get on board with a plan that entails subjecting the farmed animal population to perfectly (& economically) avoidable suffering and death? Wow.

That is as daft as me asking you if you are really suggesting we continue to breed from animals non-selectively - regarding this matter - knowing that their progeny will periodically suffer terribly as a result? Wow.

Of course nobody wants suffering to be undergone by any animal; but if you really don't want it to persist, indefinitely, the only alternatives are blanket and permanent vaccination, or selection of stock on the basis of resistance; sadly they are mutually exclusive.

Whether it will remain 'economical' - an interesting example of moral prioritising - is a separate question, I don't know and, of course, only time will tell. I do know that if a highly resistant flock can be bred, it - said flock - will be highly economical.

 

[dogandstick]

That is as daft as me asking you if you are really suggesting we continue to breed from animals non-selectively - regarding this matter - knowing that their progeny will periodically suffer terribly as a result? Wow.

Of course nobody wants suffering to be undergone by any animal; but if you really don't want it to persist, indefinitely, the only alternatives are blanket and permanent vaccination, or selection of stock on the basis of resistance; sadly they are mutually exclusive.

Whether it will remain 'economical' - an interesting example of moral prioritising - is a separate question, I don't know and, of course, only time will tell. I do know that if a highly resistant flock can be bred, it - said flock - will be highly economical.

I doubt you'll ever get there by the resistant route. Something else will come along that those resistant to clostridia will not be resistant to.

If it were not so, the human race would have been resistant to everything before we started producing medicine.

 

[johnflimston]

Agreed, but proper selection / culling should lead to less need for vaccination...

Can't really see where your coming from with this, you don't get much chance to cull animals which have contracted clostridial diseases.

 

[johnflimston]

If you leave a flock unvaccinated and accept that many might die does that mean that the ones which survive are resistant or were just lucky not to pick up the disease?

 

[It was already broken.]

That was my point earlier @johnflimston. How do you know what has been exposed and what hasn't. Cheaper just to give em a 60p or 30p or whatever jab and forget about it, move on like.

 

[Nithsdale]

Can't really see where your coming from with this, you don't get much chance to cull animals which have contracted clostridial diseases.

It's like computers... those making the antivirus stuff, just so happen to be bend and make new viruses we aren't covered for. Just to keep themselves in a job!!



I mean who ever heard of the 'common cold' 300 years ago?!?

 

[Danllan]

Can't really see where your coming from with this, you don't get much chance to cull animals which have contracted clostridial diseases.

A fair point due to poor phrasing on my part. Of course we can't cull dead sheep, so it would simply be residual enrichment; I guess I used the term 'cull through force of habit.

With regard to leaving a flock unvaccinated and surviving sheep being either resistant or lucky, that is where time comes into the matter. Cumulatively there would exposure, therefore eventual survivors could be presumed resistant.

 

[johnflimston]

Where's bovine?