Pat Bird's TB blog

Born free: Still free

2010-07-27T11:21:05Z

It's six months since I last posted, and my excuse is the novelty to be 'selling' cattle again ! That's 'selling' as in marketing stuff you were proud to walk around the ring, as opposed to getting what you can through a licensed fattening unit. We've sold about 50 animals of all classes from stores to 3 breeding bulls.

So, while I've been filling in market entry forms what has the rest of the country been up to on the TB front? The Welsh have been led up the garden path trying to mirror the protocol of the RBCT, although why anyone would want to launch into an infected badger population with cage traps for 8 nights very occasionally, is a mystery. And the NFU, having snaffled a bit of EU modulation cash from our SFP cheques has set up some TB advisory units. The first, based in Exeter was introduced at the Royal Cornwall Show in early June. The 'emotional' and 'trading' sections will take pressure off the Farm Crisis network and Animal Health, but I have reservations about advice for what is referred to as 'disease risk management'.

To me that is Defra -speke for that over used term, bio-security.

This is relatively easy for a single species vector, particularly one which responds to dipping its boots. But it's a different kettle of fish trying to exclude over protected, free ranging wildlife.

The implications of this are wide ranging. We have a government with a severe cash flow problem, and they will be eyeing up the TB budget. I can't see vets queuing up to jab-one, jab-one-free although I understand both testing and transport of reactors may be put out to tender. And abattoirs already have Defra in an armlock on reactor slaughter, with no transparency of costs v. salvage value. So what's left to raid? Farmers.

Already some who may have allegedly overshot their 'test due' date have received a letter reminding them of their obligations under SFP cross compliance. And if the farmer is at fault, all well and good. But if it's your vet having a senior moment, or AHO admin on maternity leave, what then? I did say to the Exeter team, that when they are doling out such 'advice' (biosecurity) they must be pretty sure that it will work. And having been trying (unsuccessfully) for several years to do just that, I assured them it wasn't that easy, despite what Defra had printed in it's 10^th booklet (out of 15 which now replace the single information book farmers used to receive when they went under TB restriction.)

Booklet No.10 is decorated with many pictures of badgers, all looking shiny and bouncy, and contains the following gem:

"Badgers present a particular challenge to farmers who want to keep their herd TB free".

Strictly speaking that is a wriggle. Badgers do not present a problem to farmers at all. But Defra's ongoing prevarication over dealing with the endemic TB which they carry, most certainly does. And I do get frustrated when library pictures of healthy badgers are used to illustrate TB articles. Tuberculosis is an awful death, leaving victims weak, disorientated, often riddled with abscesses, some of which would be extremely painful.

View image

We are over half way through this years'calving, so groups of cows and calves are batched with an appropriate bull and turned away onto fresh grazing. I'm glad we 'badger proofed' those creep feeders last year as Animal Health vets tell me that at least two outbreaks of TB in young beef calves were most likely traced back to contact with contaminated feed, after badgers entered creep feeders. What height are they? I must measure, as Defra's advice on trough height is still stuck in a groove of 30 inches when they have paid for research which shows badgers leaping into troughs over 4 feet off the ground.

And that is exactly what I mean when I say that if farmers are to be offered biosecurity advice, compliance with which may possibly be linked to the level of tabular valuation money offered for reactors, then 'somebody' better make sure that advice works.

The good news for us, is a second clear test. This means we're now clear to trade for a year, subject to preMT. Long may it continue.

Out of jail... I think

2010-01-21T12:01:29Z

When I first started to scribble the story of our herd under TB restriction, it was June 2009 and we'd just had a second TB test read at severe interpretation and were going to lose another three good young cows.

These were 'inconclusive' on a standard reading, but became 'reactor' status on severe. As they had all calved around the time of the test, and as Defra were not prepared to take the calves as well, I kept the cows on until their offspring could be weaned.

Then we wormed and fluked every animal in August, which delayed their departure - at least for the food chain - until October.

They had no lesions at slaughter, so we were back onto 'standard' interpretation for the next round of testing and I had booked this for November.

But AH had other ideas, and having consulted it's testing bible, said no. It must be 60 days after the cattle had left. Even thought their departure had been delayed and even though their calves were still here.

So December 22nd., was the first available date. But as neither we, nor our vet fancied reading a TB test on Christmas day, it was delayed until last week.

The vet slid into the farm through a haze of fog and snow. And we towed him out over solid ice. But the result was a completely flat test. Not a lump to write down anywhere. Clear.

So, as I squeeze through stacked cattle in the mornings, manoeuvring around 5 working bulls (well three working, and two who'd like to) unless I've misinterpreted the Defra testing bible again, I'm awaiting the 'Get out Jail' card from our local Animal Health office which tells me I can trade again. For now.

A Happy New Year to us all.

Stacked...

2009-11-17T09:25:45Z

The dictionary definition of 'stacked' is "heaped in an orderly arrangement", which is not the way I would describe our attempts to slot too many cattle of different ages, sizes and dietary requirements into our available housing this weekend.

The ravages of a TB herd restriction are probably worse than the constant testing and slaughter. Trade is at a standstill in any meaningful way, while as I described in a previous post, T-Beggars (the TB Eradication Group, or recycled T-BAG ) have proposed many more licensed movements in an effort to free up overstocked farms.

But having been on the receiving end of such trades for too many years, I can say that the pride of presenting and marketing good animals, in the best market climate and to the benefit of your business and not that of your very limited purchasers, is gone.

The 'exempt' finishing units want cheap supermarket fodder, nothing more and will buy down to a price.

And sales for pedigree breeding stock are very limited, meaning too many good cows, heifers and stock bulls end up on the hook.

The sale of the dairy herd left us cubicles for 90, which the beef fattening group have occupied with three cubicles each, all spring and summer. Automatic scrapers have been coaxed back into life, and these dormitories split into two sections, with some dry in calf cows and heifers and one bull in one half on a maintenance ration, while the 30 fatteners access maize and other goodies from the other side.

But after last weeks' gales and wet, the remaining cattle (32 cows, 32 calves and 2 bulls) were paddling. And although the grass was growing and they had access to kale, the mess on the fields from 664 stilettos was getting beyond a joke, so in they came. And Saturday involved a great deal of rearranging, re-batching and over a very, very long day.

Twenty weaned calves from the first group and eleven of the biggest newly weaned calves are now in the youngstock pens in a different part of the yards.

Twenty-one newly weaned smaller calves are in the front open yard, which normally houses the bulls, lining up against a gate where they can see and smell their mums, but not suck. And the four angus bulls which should have had this yard, have been turned back outside onto a ten acre field which they are busy digging holes in until they sort out who's the boss.

We were told that leaving a fence between mums and calves would ease the noise and stress of weaning sucklers. It didn't. And the valley is echoing to outraged howls from both sides.

We still have too many cows in one area, and have to mix and match again at some point to accommodate them safely. Then comes a strict cull on anything not in calf, not up to scratch - or producing calves not up scratch.

If we had been able to 'market' the bigger animals as stores instead of finishing them to slaughter, we would have had ample room.

So a few choice (and imaginatively descriptive) words were lobbed in the direction of the Right Honourable Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for (some) Animal's Health as we struggled to fit this quart into its pint pot, in howling gales and rain.

We fully expect that during such dire weather, the honourable gentleman was cosy in his armchair, reading a book on the life history of badgers.

Orphans

2009-10-23T14:37:39Z

A sad week for us this week. As I wrote in June, our 60day TB test, threw up 3 inconclusives on standard interpretation, which Defra ratcheted up to 'reactor' status on severe.

All these young cows had calved that week and all had really good calves, two bulls and a heifer. But of course our Minister was not going to waste taxpayer's money slaughtering these extremely 'dangerous contacts' as well - just as I was not going to try and hang them onto another cow, or bucket feed them.

So on welfare grounds they stayed with mum until they were ready to wean. And mum had flukicide and wormer in August, as we didn't want these three to contaminate clean grassland for future grazing.

The end of the road came this week when the drug withdrawal period was up, so they could go into the food chain and offset Defra's costs with a less than transparent 'salvage' income. And three cracking young suckler cows were loaded up and shot.

As expected, they had no visible lesions (NVL) but the test, doing what it says on the tin, had shown they'd had 'exposure' to the bacteria that causes TB. In the four months since the last test, or five months if I include the latency period of 30-50 days before it, they had not developed lesions, and it is quite likely that they never would.

They did not get the chance. They join almost 21,000 other casualties (up until June) of this crazy non-policy that passes for Defra's 'eradication' of bovine tuberculosis.

Meanwhile, the EU - or rather UK, German and Dutch taxpayers - has coughed up 10million euros to help our vets test more cattle and our abattoirs to slaughter them.

Defra advertised a diversification opportunity last week. At the moment the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 prohibits any act of veterinary surgery, which includes the vaccination of badgers by injection, from being carried out by non-veterinary surgeons.

And Defra, having drawn in more than 4000 extra herds onto annual testing, which will involve preMT as well, are keen to share this work - and the largesse - among as many competent lay persons as possible.

So, if anyone fancies a bit of moonlighting, located in hotspot areas of the highest TB infection, trapping, vaccinating, marking and releasing endemically infected badgers, the link to a consultation paper is http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/tb-badger/index.htm on the Defra website.

Entries close on the 10^th January 2010, which is just about the time we shall be testing the herd again.

Easier to live with - or the cattle to die from

2009-10-13T09:36:37Z

At last week's launch of the TB Eradication Group's (TBEG) recommendations to government, the tone for the discussions was set by beef farmer George Richardson, whose cattle have been under TB restriction, on and off, for well over a decade. His opening shot pointed out that the only way to deal with bTB was to deal with the maintenance reservoir of infection in badgers. Everything else was peripheral to this.

Unfortunately it is the 'everything else' which is the only remit TBEG can work with. So using a bright red crayon, they have filled in all the gaps west of a line from Mr. Richardson's patch in North Staffordshire and moving south towards the Dorset coast, put a further 4000 farms on to annual or two year testing. A 10km buffer zone, (on TBEG's map, if not on the resident badgers') protects areas east of this. How long will this line hold I wonder?

I don't have a problem with more regular testing of cattle - but I have a very big problem with not tackling the source of the problems my cattle are flagging up. I watched Hilary Benn at his last appearance before the EFRA committee.

His jubilation was tangible when by changing one word in the title of a group whose conclusions he can ignore anyway, he broke the impasse over industry 'co-operation' with his Cost and Responsibility Sharing - and levies.

The man was positively gleeful. But he had not changed tack at all. 'Eradication' meant different things to him, than it did to the industry representatives who now sit around his table discussing cattle measures, more cattle measures and only cattle measures.

There will be no removal of TB super-excreter and grossly infected badgers - at least until after this government has been removed. And even then, it appears that Defra's civil servants are still opposing any method of badger control which they quaintly describe as 'not validated'.

I remember a similar attitude in 2001, and the flat refusal of Fred Brown's offer to use his PCR 'Smart Cycler' while Defra faithfully followed a mathematical model and culled 11 million animals, chasing FMD around the country.

Unfortunately, any new administration next May, still has to get around the word 'targeted' when paired with 'badger cull'.

Both Conservative and the Lib-Dems have this pre-condition within their commitments, notably made while out of office.

So how do you 'target' a cull, if such stunning technology as PCR or the years of experience in identifying unhealthy sets offered by the now redundant Wildlife Unit operatives, is met with a brick wall of intransigence?

One idea which may have legs, is a makeover of the 'Clean Ring' strategy which worked so well in the past.

A wealth of information is held by local Animal Health Offices on where wildlife based TB problems are. They are able to examine widespread evidence provided by cattle breakdowns over large areas. It's not rocket science. If cattle are clear on regular testing, it's a pretty good indication that the badgers on that farm are healthy too, and should be left strictly alone.

But on farms like ours, and that of our neighbours who have just lost eleven animals to Defra's killing machine, there is a problem. And that problem is not going to be solved by testing more cattle, killing more cattle, or by offering 'unvalidated' bio-security advice which owes more to model farmyards and plastic cattle than a working environment covering several hundred acres.

With easier access to finishing units, long distance hops and extended testing periods, TBEG has gone out on limb to make TB easier for farmers to live with. Or put another way, for my cattle to die from.

Those three severe interpretation 'reactors' are booked to go next week, now that their calves stand a reasonable chance of survival and the cows themselves are clear of a withdrawal period for a fluke and worm drench. And then we test again. For the fourth time this year.

Rose coloured spectacles - or a softening up ahead of annual testing for the west?

2009-09-29T13:47:15Z

'Blinkers must be removed' said former FG columnist Robert Forster and ex CEO of the National Beef Association, in his opinion piece for FG last week. And 'Farmers must accept that cattle-to-cattle spread of TB is anything but marginal'.

These quotes mirror the message offered by the ISG and Professor John Bourne, who tried so desperately to pin increases in TB incidence in this country on cattle jumping around the place, coughing as they went.

The evidence for Mr. Forster's 'opinion' on the behaviour of this bacteria - it is not a virus - is said to come from the newly appointed TB Eradication Group (T-Beggars) with epidemiological evidence provided by employees of the Public Accounts Committee. Some unidentified Welshmen are also quoted. Unfortunately past peer reviewed work would contradict this confident assertion. Several times, and in three separate areas of the UK.

In the 1970s William Tait arrived in SW Cornwall, where a patch of persistent TB in cattle was spoiling the Ministry's eradication maps. He was 'fierce' in his interpretation of tests, introduced whole herd slaughter and cohort culls. He synchronised tests and ordered only licensed movements of cattle. Pretty much what the ISG's computer model, said would reduce TB incidence by 15%, four decades later.

But CVO reports of the time indicate that Tait's brutal carnage had no effect whatsoever on the level of TB in cattle, which only started to drop when gassing of badger setts close to the affected farms began. Liam Downie's efforts in the Republic of Ireland in 1988 - 91 met a similar block wall. At the start of his very expensive crackdown on cattle, which was just as 'ruthless' as Mr. Forster proposes, Mr. Downie recorded 30,000 cattle dead.

At the end of it, having undertaken exhaustive tuberculin testing. (44 million tests on 7 million cattle , over 4 years) combined with random sample herd testing, whole herd de-population of persistently infected herds, pre-movement testing and animal movement controls, the Republic had some seriously fed up farmers, a huge bill - and 35,000 reactors.

At about the same time as Downie's adventures, in Northern Ireland Dr. Louis O'Reilly carried out pairings of cattle to try and validate lateral spread of bTB. Fifteen naturally infected cattle were housed with two in contact cattle each, for seven months. His report states "At the end of the period the infected cattle failed to transmit Tb to the in-contact pair of animals". And that is after being housed, sharing water, feed and airspace.

Ten years later (c 1997), one of Dr. O'Reilly's researchers had a second bite at the cherry. Eamon Costello repeated the experiment with ten pairings, but housed them for twelve months. Although these cattle were in close confinement for a year, the in-contact cattle in six of the groups failed to become infected. Evidence of bTB transmission was found in only four of the groups. Costello reported: ""The results of the experiment suggest that tuberculous cattle do not readily infect other cattle."

The TB investigation unit in Northern Ireland have suggested that infected badgers may be the primary source for new outbreaks.

And our very own Defra recently spent £2.8 'salami slicing' reactor and in-contact cattle it what was known as the 'Pathogenisis project'. None of the over 1600 nasal swabs taken in this or a parallel study, from several hundred cattle over several months were positive on culture for onwards transmission of TB. Even from the 23 cattle with lung lesions. Not a single one.

Perhaps Mr. Forster is unaware of this work. Perhaps he is unaware of the VLA's carefully crafted spoligotype maps, showing the same strain of TB circulating between tested sentinel slaughtered cattle, and free ranging badgers in several well defined areas.

And maybe he has not seen the risk assessments, diligently carried out by AHOs in the SW which show that up to 92 % of TB breakdowns in hotspot areas are not related to cattle purchases.

(Chart of causes of TB in Devon first shown at the Killarney BCVA conference. These were compiled by AHOs after risk assessment of new breakdowns.)

And Mr. Forster doesn't explain to those of us enduring pernicious rounds of 60 day tests, with the skin test doing exactly what it says on the tin and picking up cattle ahead of active infection in most cases, just what else we are supposed to do to operate these 'ruthless' cattle measures. Or why we are 'blinded' to the cause of our problems, when every other avenue has been excluded.

To be fair, Mr. Forster mentions parallel badger control, briefly. But given the experiences of William Tait, and Liam Downie, Dr.Louis O'Reilly and Eamon Costello, he fails to explain how piling up more dead cattle will help anyway, when the cause of their continuing exposure to m.bovis is, in the majority of cases, not their dead herd mates at all.

My cattle have now ratcheted up 40 skin TB tests and one gammaIFN blood screen in eight years. Four of these read under severe interpretation. But despite these prolonged restrictions, no cattle have bounced back as 'slaughterhouse cases' missed by these tests.

Until the 2001 breakdown, we tested annually. The farm is ring fenced by woods and roads and we share no machinery, or accesses. We do share badgers with neighbours, who are also under prolonged TB restrictions and testing several times a year. After selling the main dairy herd and youngstock, we gradually restocked with calves or preMT pedigree animals as the core of a new beef enterprise. And it is those animals that are now reacting to exposure to bacteria deposited by the valley's wildlife reservoir. My AHO's risk assessment supports that view.

Mr. Forster argues that many farmers are 'blinded' by the notion of badger culling, and have ignored their own responsibilities with regard to cattle to cattle transmission.

Define 'responsibilities'?

Many of us have kept closed herds, operated as tight a biosecurity as we could, tested and slaughtered cattle as regularly as requested by Defra or its predecessors - and still suffered prolonged TB restrictions.

Both Tait and Downie experienced the futile frustration of a one sided policy, while answers as to why the Thornbury badger clearance was so successful drew the written parliamentary answer: "no other contemporaneous change was identified that could have accounted for the reduction in TB incidence in the area".

It is easy to offer glib solutions to a situation through the rose coloured spectacles offered by a distance of several hundred miles and at arm's length from the cattle under your care. But bacteria, hitching a ride on free ranging wildlife do not respect lines drawn on maps, neither to they respond to political bullying - they just spread.

Collateral damage

2009-09-21T08:30:01Z

The main thrust of these stories from the farm gate concern cattle, badger TB and the effect of the disease on our business. But another problem is the damage that excavations by these black and white, subterranean miners cause.

In the last few years, numbers have increased substantially, (by 77 per cent in a decade) and they have to live somewhere. Their setts have a Grade 1 listing and even if the occupants undermine roads, excavate graveyards, drain canals and reservoirs or cause injury when people fall down into their tunnels there is very little that can be done as the following snippets illustrate.

A decade ago, allotment holders in Richmond were forced to give up their plots as badgers excavated two setts under them, and made use of a ready filled larder.

In 2005, they broke into Erlestoke prison in Wiltshire, biting a prison guard in the process. In Kent, they have excavated the road into Dargate which regularly cuts off the village, as 'elf and safety' won't allow traffic over it, and the badger protection laws won't allow them to be moved very often, or very far.

In 2007, after the use of one-way-gates, they had returned for the fourth time - slightly further down the road and at considerable cost. In Saltdean near Brighton, residents experienced the joy of a farm slurry store undermined and collapsing - on a Sunday afternoon.

Over £25 million worth of damage to agriculture was caused by badgers in the one year Defra dared to ask, and they seem to be attracted to graveyards, both ancient and modern. The Ministry of Defence say that a Bronze age burial barrow in South Pembrokeshire is being asset stripped of its contents by badgers, and further reports of damage come from Salisbury Plain, Dyfyd and Ashbourne.

Last year badgers have created a honeycomb of tunnels under the 12th century graveyard at St Lawrence Church, in Cheltenham. They disturbed two other graves - and four more in danger of collapse were cordoned off. Relatives were extremely distressed to find coffins and caskets exposed, and their carefully tended graves looking like a bomb site.

Meanwhile on our patch, the maize crop is under attack. Standing straight and tall overlooking the sea in a 'before' shot, a second picture shows a patch felled and the cobs chewed.

It is an early variety which will be harvested just as soon as we can. And then securely sheeted down. And then there is problem of 'badger proofing' the centre feed passage - without causing pneumonia and heat stroke to the cattle sealed up inside.

Enough rope?

2009-09-09T09:24:05Z

What a delightful chap. Jack Reedy, vice-chairman of the Badger Trust, interviewed in last week's FG must have had cattle farmers, especially those under herd restrictions and losing shed loads of cattle, enthralled.

His kindly brow, knitting with genteel compassion, Reedy showing genuine understanding of our problems and gave much information, which may be of help to us lesser mortals.

The Badger Trust deals in 'facts' says Mr. Reedy, while TB hit farmers - that's me - trade on emotion. His arguments, he confirms, are based on 'sound science'.

So quite unemotionally I ask, would that be the 'science' with which I am familiar, or the sort of 'political science' so recently delivered by members of the ISG?

Professor Bourne was at pains to make clear to various committees that a small amount of badger culling may be sanctioned, but only to act as an inducement for more brutal cattle measures of the sort Mr. Reedy is proposing. And which he openly told veterinary colleagues at the beginning of his culling trial, would be their only option at the end of it.

He reiterated this political steer which his 'trial' had received when interviewed both by the EFRA committee and the Welsh Assembly in July 2007. His evidence to the latter, prompting this explosive gem from Mr. Paddy Rooney, representing the CLA and a member of the TB Action group who said:

" Perhaps I might preface my remarks by saying that I was brought up as a scientist; it was not in this discipline, but scientific principles hold, whatever the discipline. One of the things that I was taught was that, in designing an experiment to try to address an issue or a problem, you may not like the results, but you accept them. I find it deeply shocking that responsible scientists should have been prepared to undertake a research study having been told at the outset that there is a conclusion that they are not allowed to reach. I find that utterly disgraceful".

Indulging in a bit of political back covering, Professor Bourne also told ministers in 2007 that badger culling 'as was conducted in this trial' had no place in policy. He was careful to say that, he said, as other types of culling which had not been part of the trial and thus may have had a different outcome. For sure, he certainly showed us all how not to cull badgers.

But that is the type of 'political science' which seems to attract Mr. Reedy and his fellow travellers, who appear to neither know nor care about any research pre ISG, or post RBCT.

The basis of Bourne's badger dispersal trial is contained in a description of the way 'risk' was assessed. Farmers involved with the RBCT filled out a long TB99 form which identified the possible causes of why the farm had suffered a breakdown. This still happens and is used to assess the need for back tracing of cattle movements and contacts. (In 2001, mine said 'no risk' from everything - except badgers, but the ISG ignored it along with all the others.)

This form should have formed the basis of the RBCT mathematical modelling. However for whatever reason, it did not. It was binned and the modellers used an 'assumption' of cattle contact across farm borders, bought in cattle and badgers as their points of reference. All three calculations were then given 'roughly equal importance'.

This is despite evidence from local AHOs, which consistently showed that at least 76 per cent and up to 90 percent of TB outbreaks in the worst areas are down not to cattle at all, but to badgers. Mr. Reedy accepts that badgers play a role in TB hotspots and says he "would be an idiot to deny that". Indeed.

On hotspots remaining in the UK after the TB eradication clearances of the 1960s, Mr. Reedy says that the weather and not culling out whole herds, caused the consequent spread of disease. He is wrong on both counts. In the West Penwith area of Cornwall in the early 1970s, whole herd slaughter, cohort slaughter, licensed movements and severe interpretation of synchronised tests were used by the DVM of the time, who was 'fierce' in his goal to clear out TB.

He failed, and the CVO reports of that decade confirm that he failed. Not until badger culling was started in 1974/ 75, did reactor figures finally start to drop. Similar stringent cattle measures were used in the Republic of Ireland with equally expensive and futile results. And climate? The Scilly Isles and Isle of Man share the same air space and geological features as SW England, but have no badgers and no home grown TB.

And the SW's badgers have not migrated northwards and westwards either, as the VLA's TB spoligotype maps show. The disease is circulating in clearly defined patches between tested, slaughtered cattle and free ranging badgers, exercising their right-to-roam.

And then 'closed herds'. Mr. Reedy scoffs at the suggestion, citing show visits, lorries, and shared equipment as other possibilities for the spread of TB. But as I said in my first FG blog post, I have a piece of paper from BCMS written in 2005, confirming 'no bought in cattle on the database'.

We did not show cattle (although we sold some good ones) and our boundaries were inspected by Defra's predecessor as being totally secure, with the cattle accepted as part of their voluntary EBL scheme. Lorries have access directly from the public road (not through cattle entrances) and we share no equipment. At that time (2005) we'd had continuous 60 day TB tests for over 4 years and lost too many good, home bred cattle.

But I'm not about to 'trade on emotion' about their totally unnecessary deaths or the strain it put on our business. Or even the fact that we are still uninsurable, still under TB restriction and unable to run our business as we would like. I'm not 'emotional' at all - but I am bloody angry at the sheer waste of money, time and effort Defra and their assorted snake-oil-peddlers throw into tiptoeing around trying to avoid this elephant in the room.

I am 'disappointed' that having published biosecurity research which they had commissioned, Defra can still publish duplicitous advice to farmers - and offer taxpayer's money for more research. And I am surprised that apparently intelligent people, still believe that the earth is flat.

Wet weather notes

2009-09-03T10:15:01Z

The first days of September and we have horizontal rain, blown in on a westerly gale. I took the photo of some of this year's calves last week, bright eyed, bushy tailed and inquisitive in the bright sunshine. Today, sitting snug in the farm office, they make a better picture than what's going on outside.

Another creep feeder has been ordered, and later this week will be delivered to our chap-who-does-the-welding, for its badger-modifications. He attaches a simple hinged flap with a rolled edge, which drops down to give access to feed during the day, but which can be flipped up to close it off at night.

Another job, but all farm assurance schemes say we must 'prevent the ingress of vermin'.

I have contacted the manufacturers to suggest a factory 'modification' - with no charge for the idea of course, but throwing the obvious crumb, that a third creep feeder would be most welcome!

In general, farmers have no idea how resourceful badgers can be when their evening meal is at stake. After hoovering up the local earthworms, hedgehogs, frogs, toads and ground nesting birds, cattle feed stores and TMR troughs are a breeze.

They can flatten out to slither under your sheeted gates, climb to 16 feet (or more), and as I said in an earlier post, they've been filmed vaulting into cattle troughs over 4 feet off the ground.

And if all accesses to your buildings are hermetically sealed, and your cattle haven't by that time succumbed to pneumonia, these resourceful creatures have been known to dig a Colditz - type tunnel into farm buildings. Arriving in the middle of earth floored areas through the top of a very large molehill.

I'm told that the walls of the badger pound at VLA Weybridge, designed to keep them in, are reinforced concrete sunk 15 feet in the ground. Not many farm buildings or feed stores have that degree of armour plating.

Mycobacterium bovis, the bacteria that causes TB is a tough cookie; an organism with wearing a wax jacket and having a centre that will withstand practically everything apart from UV rays.

It loves water, withstands freezing and survives submersion in acid. Boiling for 15 minutes will zap it, but that's not terribly practical in a farm situation. Weather influences its survival when on grassland, and away from the sun's rays, it can survive for months. Underground it's survival extends to years.

The point is that whatever we know from decades of previous research about the survival of this organism, is missing the point. It has no place plastered across my grassland in the first place. And I have no wish to donate the three cheeky youngsters in this week's photo to the maw of Defra's culling machine.

A bag of bones

2009-08-21T09:36:17Z

After going clear of our almost five year TB breakdown, which I described in the first posting, we rumbled along with just a few IRs for the next couple of years. The RBCT badger trappers had caught the culprits of the dairy herd carnage in their second and final visit here. But those inconclusives still snarled us up in movement restrictions until December 2007, when we finally shook ourselves free.

During this time, badger activity was low, but our deer management team reported that badgers had started digging what they thought was a new sett, about 100 yards from our boundary. As we had no badgers at all on the farm now, we welcomed these to act as a buffer against all the old, sick and excluded badgers, turfed out from setts on farms surrounding us.

But in the spring of 2007, a badger expired in a gateway to one of our fields, fairly close to this area. And on closer inspection, we found this was not a 'new build' at all. It was a huge old sett about sixty feet long, which had been abandoned. The new holes were singles and not particularly active. At our July 2008 test, we had a bunch of IRs and another reactor, followed by two steers with lesions in January 2009.

This week, a trip through the woods, revealed a 'spring clean' undertaken by a new tenant of this old sett.

Having asked some people who know about these things, they say that the skull and leg bones appear to be at least 6 months old, possibly up to year. (Which ties in nicely with our problems in July '08).

They could be older but are certainly no less. They are the skull, femur and tibia of a 'fully mature, well grown animal as shown by the very high parietal crest on the top of the skull.

The teeth are worn and from that, the animal would appear to be at least 5 years old. (in other words, not a youngster setting up house). The height of the crest of the skull, and the width of the jaws indicate a very powerful animal, likely to be male'.

I have heard about 'hospice' setts, and listened to descriptions of 'skeletons and skulls' ejected by another occupant, but until now, never seen one. The concept is vehemently denied by badger watchers and of course, Defra. But where do they imagine aged, sick, infirm or excluded badgers go to die? And where do they suppose population explosions of some 77 per cent in each decade, set up home? Are they expected to build tower blocks? Sit on each other's shoulders?

The blurb that accompanies public access to Woodchester Park's badgers describes sett-ling (sorry!) down to watch an active sett. But of course, has no mention of the sort of 'accommodation' we found last week:

"The most common way to study or watch badgers in the field is at the sett" the paper purrs, and the notes advise watchers to 'choose a sett, sit downwind of it, where you can see the entrance holes. Sit low in undergrowth, wearing clothing that doesn't rustle, with your back to a tree about 5-10 m away from the entrance, at dusk or dawn. Don't disturb the badgers and make sure they have either left their sett, or returned underground before you leave'.

Woodchester wouldn't have many returning visitors if they'd queued to see this pile of bones. And for any badgers which may be healthy, trying to refurbish this sett, their chances of remaining so if the previous occupant had got TB - and our tested, sentinel (and now dead) cattle indicate that it had - are minimal. M.bovis can survive years underground, and may also be present in the bone marrow of the deceased, should anything try to sharpen its teeth.

The scale of the problem - and its consequences

2009-08-11T09:14:57Z

The news this week that a Woodchester Park operative has contracted TB, although unfortunate for the person concerned, is a timely reminder of why countries are bound by statute to eradicate tuberculosis.

In the 1930s and 40s the prime source of human bTB was unpasteurised milk, and unfortunately those old text books are still around. But that loophole was firmly shut by GB's cattle TB eradication scheme which operated from the early 1950s and 1960s.

Every herd, beginning at the coasts and working inland to the midlands was tested, and after a shaky start, reactors culled with full compensation. But a handful of stubborn 'hotspots' remained and in 1971, one in Gloucestershire yielded a mangy, tuberculous badger. It was then that the Ministry realised that they had a second reservoir of the disease, and not until they cleared it did TB incidence in the hotspots drop.

In 1986, at the end of the Clean Ring strategy, (when badgers were culled in response to a confirmed cattle outbreak which couldn't be attributed to cattle movements), GB recorded less than 100 herds under TB restriction and culled under 700 cattle.

After two decades of sanitisation and prevarication, not to mention reams of 'research' compiled by the operators of Woodchester Park, in 2008 almost 8,000 herds were restricted and 40,000 cattle shot.

Environmental contamination is now at such a level that other species are falling victim, including pet dogs and cats, sheep, goats and free range pigs. Alpacas and llamas seem particularly vulnerable, and in them, the disease develops quickly and dramatically, often spreading within the herd.

Most of these spillover victims have had no contact with cattle at all, much less drunk unpasteurised milk. But many will have had close contact with their owners.

I was up in the Midlands last week, and driving back, signposts to villages with familiar problems were a reminder of what happens when governments walk away from problems.

I left TB restricted farms in Leicestershire - a county which until recently had none at all, but is now recording over 6% of its herds under restriction - and drove south through the Cotswolds, home to Woodchester's badgers.

I saw the sign for the Cotswold Farm Park, often featured in BBC's Countryfile. In a recent episode, Adam Henson was elated with his clear TB test. I bet he was, he'd been under restriction for three years.

I passed Stroud where a herd from which we'd bought pedigree cattle has had a TB breakdown, Dursley, where a few years ago a whole herd was taken and Thornbury, where just six months of badger clearance kept cattle farms clear of TB for the next decade.

Driving through Somerset, farms that I know have problems were both sides of the motorway and into Devon where Tiverton is proposed as a site for vaccinating endemically infected badgers in a TB 'hotspot'.

Finally over the Tamar into Cornwall, where we have three young 'sentinels' awaiting slaughter.

That is the scale of the problem now: 250 miles of misery. And that's without going west into through Hereford and Worcester and into Wales, or further north into Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire, all areas which are filling the GB map solid red, as Defra's 2008 illustration proudly shows.

Badger- proofing

2009-07-30T11:54:07Z

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.

Bombarded with 'biosecurity' advice

2009-07-22T13:08:16Z

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.

A load of bull(s)

2009-07-16T08:20:01Z

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?

Defra unveils 'daftest' plan to combat bTB

2009-07-10T13:14:18Z

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.