- Location
- Scottish Highlands
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Bovine TB testing intervals
Guidance for cattle keepers on the bovine TB surveillance testing intervals for areas in England, Wales and Scotland.www.gov.uk
Scotland
Scotland has been designated officially TB free (OTF) since September 2009. As a result, changes were introduced to exempt low risk herds from the default routine testing regime of 48 months that applies to all other non-exempt herds.
Low risk herds must fully comply with one of the following:
Slaughtered animals are animals that have been on the holding for at least 60 days and that move either direct from the farm to slaughterhouse, or directly from the farm to market and then directly to the slaughterhouse.
- herds with fewer than 50 cattle which have had fewer than 2 consignments of cattle moved on from high incidence TB areas (including Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland) in the previous 4 years
- herds that slaughter more than 25% of their stock annually and have had fewer than 2 consignments of cattle moved on from high incidence TB areas (including Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland) in the previous 4 years
- herds that slaughter more than 40% of their stock annually
It does not include animals moving onto another holding temporarily between market and slaughterhouse.
The slaughter rate is calculated on the total number of cattle slaughtered in a slaughterhouse in the previous calendar year divided by the herd size (total stock on farm on 1 January).
APHA annually assesses each individual herd’s eligibility for exemption from TB testing, and will write to all cattle keepers in Scotland to confirm whether or not their herd is exempt.
See the Scotland TB testing intervals list (PDF, 60.5KB, 22 pages) .