But you are happy to spend money on boluses, drenches that turn into expensive urine, mineral buckets to feed the wildlife costing many times more?!Prob is that blood tests are pretty expensive, so can't afford to do them all the time!
Most bring the sheep to me, I only ever really go out for full flock bleeds for things like MV. Charge a couple of quid for the sampling. I'm not even sure of the legality of a farmer taking blood, I know people do IV injections but I suspect a blind eye is turned rather than it being ok. Bleeding sheep is quite tricky, I know some vets that struggle. Without supervision of someone that knows it could be a welfare issue. There are lay cow blood testers who are trained by DEFRA, but I don't think so for sheep. Even during the scrapie scheme and foot and mouth I'm sure sheep were all done by vets.
There is very little in the costs of tests, speed and service far more significant.
Most bring the sheep to me, I only ever really go out for full flock bleeds for things like MV. Charge a couple of quid for the sampling. I'm not even sure of the legality of a farmer taking blood, I know people do IV injections but I suspect a blind eye is turned rather than it being ok. Bleeding sheep is quite tricky, I know some vets that struggle. Without supervision of someone that knows it could be a welfare issue. There are lay cow blood testers who are trained by DEFRA, but I don't think so for sheep. Even during the scrapie scheme and foot and mouth I'm sure sheep were all done by vets.
I can accept that with the scrapie scheme, but during FMD lay people (DEFRA trained) were bleeding cows, but vets only doing sheep. Lay blood testers were good enough for brucellosis bloods in cows, why not scrapie in sheep? I honestly don't know. I can teach any moron to bleed cows from the tail vein, but there is more skill in sheep. There is more risk, as @jemski says.I always thought that was more to do with certifying that the actual animals were tested, and rightly so, otherwise the unscrupulous, untrustworthy farmers (that's all of us according to most govt bodies) could bleed an animal they knew to be right, several times.
I can accept that with the scrapie scheme, but during FMD lay people (DEFRA trained) were bleeding cows, but vets only doing sheep. Lay blood testers were good enough for brucellosis bloods in cows, why not scrapie in sheep? I honestly don't know. I can teach any moron to bleed cows from the tail vein, but there is more skill in sheep. There is more risk, as @jemski says.
Biobest are promoting their sheep testing more and seem to do more tests now but i haven't done a comparison.We looked at the legality of farmers blood sampling . Read the rules and they didn't seem to be absolutely clear but in the end the analysis was------doing your own animals is fine but doing someone else's is not (I can bleed sheep faster and cleaner than most vets )
I find that SAC are usually the best for pricing and service for most tests (disease as well as mineral)