July 2009 Archives

The cattle fattening on corn and silage are leaving in pairs on a weekly basis now, and we are preparing to bring in another batch of steers and a few plain heifers to finish inside.

 Four of the best Bazadaise/Angus crossbred heifers we will keep for breeding, if only to see if their growth and conformation is maintained into a second generation.

We find Bazadaise cattle are longer in the loin and with less belly than most, but without the rear end problems, locomotion and calving difficulty associated with some breeds. This young man  (pictured left) is just on his way out with a harem of nineteen.

The creep feeder is ordered - as are its badger-proofing modifications, which I spoke about last week. A hinged flap which can be totally shut down and latched at night seems the simplest.

Not so simple are the acrobatics involved with a six foot bloke, (I haven't volunteered) crawling under the thing to open and shut it twice a day.

This 'modification' may be something manufacturers could think of as well. I'm not too thrilled to be welding bits onto a brand new piece of kit, and 'badger proofing' is something that is not at all easy in a farm situation. You may keep your cattle in a hermetically sealed box, but what about feed stores?

It was our (bitter) experience over many years, that keeping badgers out of buildings was well nigh impossible. If we closed down sheeted feed passage doors, which was obvious and easy, then they gained entry through cubicles or open loafing yards, and once in the feed passage, were trapped by the heads of curious cows.

In  2003, this led to the loss of 17 out of 20 in calf heifers in one group. As well as leaping into feed troughs too high for cattle to access (filmed, as I mentioned last week) badgers can climb up to 16 feet, slither under the 4 inch gap below your sheeted gates and tunnel their way into cattle sheds, under foundations several feet deep.

Maize clamps and straights stores are a Mecca, with one Midlands farmer counting over 80 badgers motoring through his clamp, having climbed gates and demolished sheeting and tyres to get there.

So much for them living in 'small social groups' and 'existing on earthworms'. Badger-proofing an average cattle farm is not easy,  but for those living in the fairy bubble of ideas which constitutes Defra's London headquarters, it is a 'very good idea' and one which they would like to see index -linked to cash.

We are constantly bombarded with  'biosecurity' advice, mainly I've noticed from people who sit behind desks and preach it from a distance.

Recently the word has been linked to farmer's compulsory purchase monies for their slaughtered TB test reactors. By that, I expect Defra mean deductions from a given figure, not additions for keeping a tight rein on transmission opportunities.

We have high molybdenum levels and have to adjust the cows' mineral and trace element intake to match. In winter a purpose made mix is offered on silage, but in summer we have to rely on tubs - or lose cattle to staggers and calves to iodine deficiency.

We had a look at boluses. And the tongues to administer them. And then at the size of an angus suckler cow with her nose on the ground at the front of the cattle crush. We ordered tubs.

Badgers like mineral tubs too; in fact it has been suggested that farmers should feed special 'badger' tubs to them. Trust me: for preventing TB in cattle, that doesn't work either.

But it is important to stop feeding or licking opportunities between cattle and those little black and white furry foxes. So every morning the lids are removed from our buckets so the cattle can access them, and every night they are replaced.

This week we looked at a calf creep feeder. Or should I say badger feeder? As badgers have been filmed vaulting into cattle feed troughs sited over 4 feet off the ground, a covered trough at about 2'6" is their equivalent of breakfast at the Ritz.

So if we do go ahead and buy one, it will need considerable rearrangement to 'prevent ingress of vermin' - which is what our farm assurance paperwork says we should be doing.

Maybe I'll just telephone one of Defra's biosecurity advisers and ask how we should go about it. And while I'm on the phone, ask how we prevent our cattle grazing grass contaminated with bacteria laden urine, dribbled about by incontinent diseased wildlife.

Three of the pedigree Angus cows have had bull calves this week, including our best conformation lady, Paula. So it's decision time. Do we bank on going clear of TB in time to market these boys as breeding bulls at some point?

Or are they destined to be T-bone steak? Last year we used Pioneer, (the bull in the photo) sparingly. He's three and a half years old now and has a lot of calves on the ground. They are long, stretchy and with good growth.

The second working bull, Victor is two and a half and a more traditional type angus. He too has calves here and in an ideal world, both would be sold on the make way for younger animals coming up. Waiting in line are two yearlings, Patriot and Paymaster, both stylish youngsters with good conformation and records.

I remember a few years ago, a friend had six pedigree breeding bulls entered for Perth. They were halter broken, washed and clipped, but then the herd had a TB failure. All these young bulls ended up as OTM beef and a consequential loss of several thousand pounds for that enterprise.

When we sold the dairy herd and 'retired', we had intended running a purely commercial cross bred beef herd, but keeping up the pedigree interest with a small core of breeding cattle to sell.

TB has completely skewed that idea. Including the young Bazadaise bull, purchased as a calf with his mum, we have five bulls on the farm already. Dare we take the chance on leaving another three animals entire?

As the final curtain comes down on the Royal Show as we know it this week, Defra have unveiled possibly their daftest and most long term excuse-for-doing-nothing, about bTB. Vaccinating badgers, but only in TB hotspots.

A month ago, Farmers Guardian reported on a presentation given by Swiss vet, Dr. Ueli Zellweger who described Defra's idea as "not just daft, but bloody dangerous".

The reason for this is that the concept of vaccinating something that is already infected breaks the two golden rules of any successful vaccination programme.

Dr. Zellweger explained that the first rule is 'never, never vaccinate a stressed or weakened animal'. But trapping and manually injecting badgers would do just that he said, possibly leading to stress induced perturbation, which so dogged the previous ten-year 'trial' and increased the opportunity for spillover into cattle disease.

The second rule is never to vaccinate against a disease when you have even the slightest suspicion that the animal already has it. This is quite likely to blow the animal's immune system into full-blown disease status, if it wasn't before.

But this is Defra we're talking about. And vaccinating in an area of endemically infected badgers against a disease which they already have, is a decision made by a career politician, not an experienced veterinary practitioner.

Six new 'trial' areas in the most endemically infected parts of the country will begin - if farmers sign up to it - in 2010.

Badgers will be trapped and vaccinated annually for five years. It is likely, Defra say, to take 20 years for the vaccine to bring 'results'. 

Exactly what 'result' they do not define. But many epidemiologists, as well as experienced vets like Dr. Zellweger, are shaking their heads in disbelief, and just hoping that a seriously bad situation is not made a whole lot worse.

 We still have about twenty cows to calve but it's time now to sort out the earlier mums, and batch them with the bulls. The pedigree cattle are separated, kept handy and will be AI'd .

 Today, it's been the weekly round up of tags and rings for the latest calves (pictured) then off to fresh grass. Our first two prime corn and silage finished heifers went last week, and twelve are inside fattening nicely.

As they go, another batch of steers (and some plain heifers) will come in for the same treatment. Not the extensive free range beef system the public say they want, but while politicians rule Animal Health, it's the only way we can farm.