Large scale fraud and criminality on Pembrokeshire mega-herd farm.

[Princess Pooper]

It’s only so accurate as the cows are pretty infected and infectious by time skin test shows up, a blood test will show TB up approx 2-3months before skin test. But they can be done by non vets so where the “jobs for the boys” in that?

You do realise that you don't have to be a qualified vet or an APHA tester to do skin tests (certainly in England)? There have been lay testers for several years. Some of the vet techs in our local practice are also qualified TB testers now.

 

[In the pit]

Your first point is just wrong. The test has a specificity of around 99.8% so roughly 1 in 5000 false positives. It has a sensitivity of maximum 80%, so at least 1 in 5 animals infected with TB within a herd are missed. Put another way: False positives are very rare, missing infected animals happens pretty much every time a herd with a history of TB is tested which is why is is such a persistent problem.

As much as we all love to blame deer, badgers and my Aunt Mildred.... the simple fact is that cow to cow transmisson is the vast bulk of TB transmission on every farm and the relatively poor sensitivity of the test is why it is such a headache to get rid of once you have it.

I have no love of the current TB policy at all but it is also pretty misunderstood.

Cow to cow transfer to a lot harder than badger to cow transfer because an infected badger sheds far more tb

 

[BuskhillFarm]

You do realise that you don't have to be a qualified vet or an APHA tester to do skin tests (certainly in England)? There have been lay testers for several years. Some of the vet techs in our local practice are also qualified TB testers now.

I’m in N Ireland, we did a trial of that and they canned it in favour of the vets mainly private ones

 

[DairyNerd]

Cow to cow transfer to a lot harder than badger to cow transfer because an infected badger sheds far more tb

True but solely blaming wildlife is deflecting a lot of blame away from other causes.

 

[Enry]

The fine and costs is not much really. If they sold all their cows to slaughter tomorrow [who would buy them to milk? They can’t anyway as they are perpetually under restriction {is it any wonder?}] they would surely net nearly £2million tax free.
Of course, if they have outstanding debts of several million, that would alter the equation somewhat.

If they’ve had over £3m comp over 15yrs it will be a miracle if these activities were only limited to has been found… Feel sorry for the genuine farmers hit with TB breakdowns - the public sympathy they may have had will be forever tarnished by minorities like these!

Not sure... I read 24k each
90k awarded to council for costs??
Another 217k was mentioned.

Wasn't exactly clear what the total fine could be.

as I understood actual fine £24k each, costs £94k and repay £200ish K as proceeds of crime - they have probably got off very lightly - less than £400k to find when they have received £3m in recent years! Im sure Gov paid out on some cows several times as they kept failing test but with a new identity

 

[Enry]

They are still milking.

Is their milk buyer happy about the situation I wonder? Think that was the idea….good cow fails, tagged, valued, swap tag and kill a scrap one. Repeat….

 

[ollie989898]

Your first point is just wrong. The test has a specificity of around 99.8% so roughly 1 in 5000 false positives. It has a sensitivity of maximum 80%, so at least 1 in 5 animals infected with TB within a herd are missed. Put another way: False positives are very rare, missing infected animals happens pretty much every time a herd with a history of TB is tested which is why is is such a persistent problem.

As much as we all love to blame deer, badgers and my Aunt Mildred.... the simple fact is that cow to cow transmisson is the vast bulk of TB transmission on every farm and the relatively poor sensitivity of the test is why it is such a headache to get rid of once you have it.

I have no love of the current TB policy at all but it is also pretty misunderstood.

If cow to cow transmission was the main cause, then how do you account for TB spreading around the country despite the TB policy we have had for decades?

There are fewer and fewer herds around, meaning they are geographically further and further apart, too. And yet the disease is spreading.

If it was solely a cow to cow problem, then it would be up to individual farms to curtail. I know a lot of people do not buy in animals at all and only ever send them away. Surely for these farms then a once annual test is ample?

 

[egbert]

Substantial fines for farmers who knowingly kept cattle with bovine TB reactors on farm

Three members of a Pembrokeshire farming family have been sentenced for deliberately swapping cattle ear tags; actions that saw animals with Bovine Tuberculosis (TB) reactors remain on the farm.

newsroom.pembrokeshire.gov.uk

Read the article. It brings the dairy industry into disrepute and in my opinion they should have substantial jail time as well as confiscation of assets on top of individual fines. They should also be stripped of their Farm Assurance status permanently.



What do you think?

Am I being too harsh? As ‘Hanging Judge Duck’ I would personally have seen them hung drawn and quartered and their heads publicly displayed on spikes outside the Court for their long term criminality, so maybe I am a bit harsh. We just cannot afford having these kinds of people in the industry. Apart from systemic animal cruelty I cannot imagine a worse case of farmer criminality than this.

Jeez.
I first thought I was reading that they'd left a reactor mixed with others til it was collected.....then I read on.
holy moly.
I can't believe someone would do this now.
I suppose - and i haven't read all the thread, being in Wales you might well have become jaded about TB control.....but this?

I'm with the duck I'm afraid.
If it's as it reads, I don't see how they can be allowed to continue in business.
The fines don't look enough given the history.

What an advert for the industry.

 

[In the pit]

True but solely blaming wildlife is deflecting a lot of blame away from other causes.

The trouble is there dealing with everything bar the wildlife ,so the policy is always doomed to failure

 

[vantage]

Not sure you're right on that one, I've lost five cows since September, none have had visible tb lesions or had a positive culture.

Nothing unusual with that at all. The test is an immune response to tb infection, cows that are exposed to it may or may not succumb to the infection. We were down six years, no cultures or lesions.

 

[JP1]

If govt paid proper value, dodges would not be necessary

You reckon ? I fancy those three would have still done so

 

[TheRanger]

I want to know how you swap a tag. I had a bullock recently that lost one of it's tags in the trailer on the way to the mart. Found the tag in the back of the trailer intact as the ear had split. Spent a while trying to prise it apart to reuse it, couldn't see how it was possible. Ended up buying a new one (it's now £6 for a tag on the day at the market )

 

[Henarar]

It’s only so accurate as the cows are pretty infected and infectious by time skin test shows up, a blood test will show TB up approx 2-3months before skin test. But they can be done by non vets so where the “jobs for the boys” in that?

so can a skin test

 

[Jdunn55]

I want to know how you swap a tag. I had a bullock recently that lost one of it's tags in the trailer on the way to the mart. Found the tag in the back of the trailer intact as the ear had split. Spent a while trying to prise it apart to reuse it, couldn't see how it was possible. Ended up buying a new one (it's now £6 for a tag on the day at the market )

I constantly find whole tags around the farm but can't ever prize them apart to reuse

 

[betweenthelines]

Your first point is just wrong. The test has a specificity of around 99.8% so roughly 1 in 5000 false positives. It has a sensitivity of maximum 80%, so at least 1 in 5 animals infected with TB within a herd are missed. Put another way: False positives are very rare, missing infected animals happens pretty much every time a herd with a history of TB is tested which is why is is such a persistent problem.

As much as we all love to blame deer, badgers and my Aunt Mildred.... the simple fact is that cow to cow transmisson is the vast bulk of TB transmission on every farm and the relatively poor sensitivity of the test is why it is such a headache to get rid of once you have it.

I have no love of the current TB policy at all but it is also pretty misunderstood.

If 20% of infected animals remain in the herd it seems far more likely that "herd immunity" will wipe out bovine Tb than test and cull will. And that these farmers' crimes will have had next to no extra effect on neighbouring herds as they would have had 20% non identified reactors wandering around anyway.

As for not blaming badgers, how would you explain inter herd transmission?

 

[DairyNerd]

If 20% of infected animals remain in the herd it seems far more likely that "herd immunity" will wipe out bovine Tb than test and cull will.

As for not blaming badgers, how would you explain inter herd transmission?

Never said I don't blame badgers, they carry TB so clearly transmit it to cows and vice-versa. I just think that it is an easy way out for us to blame badgers so entirely as it is convieniently the one factor that we can influence without it having any direct impact on how we farm. I would be in favour of allowing farmers to control badgers in the same way as foxes or deer, most wouldn't bother unless you had a problem which is exactly the outcome you want.

 

[Tim1989]

I want to know how you swap a tag. I had a bullock recently that lost one of it's tags in the trailer on the way to the mart. Found the tag in the back of the trailer intact as the ear had split. Spent a while trying to prise it apart to reuse it, couldn't see how it was possible. Ended up buying a new one (it's now £6 for a tag on the day at the market )

They come apart in boiling water.

 

[TheRanger]

They come apart in boiling water.

Not very easy when it's still on the cow though?

 

[crashbox]

In Britain we have TB in Ireland they have JCB

What's JCB?

 

[Bruce Almighty]

Never said I don't blame badgers, they carry TB so clearly transmit it to cows and vice-versa. I just think that it is an easy way out for us to blame badgers so entirely as it is convieniently the one factor that we can influence without it having any direct impact on how we farm. I would be in favour of allowing farmers to control badgers in the same way as foxes or deer, most wouldn't bother unless you had a problem which is exactly the outcome you want.

A few points - sorry going off topic slightly
Badgers are mass excretors of TB
(Pigs are mass excretors of foot & mouth)
TB is a respiratory disease, where could be a worse place for it to spread than a hole underground ?
In the words of one of our vets
If you were trying to explain TB to someone who knew nothing about it -
“It’s a disease that affects both big black and white animals and also small black and white animals, to control the disease we test and kill the infected big black and white animals but we don’t do anything about the small black and white animals”

Finally
TB was almost eradicated in Britain in the 60s and 70s by way of testing cattle and slaughtering infected cattle. Any badger setts near the infected herds were gassed.
It was a proven successful system.
Once the gassing of infected badgers stopped, the TB started spreading, the rest is history.