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Case Studies and Articles Latest |
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9 Mar 2013, 8:16 PM
Bovine TB and cattle vaccination - Rethink bTB's submission to EFRA read more...
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9 Mar 2013, 8:07 PM
The following is the formal response submitted to EFRA by farmers who own a 48ha farm in Gloucestershire and have kept beef cattle since the 1980's in a TB 'hot-spot'. The business has included a commercial beef and calf rearing unit but the herd has never been under TB2 restrictions. It makes some excellent points and is well worth reading. It has been reproduced here with permission from the farmers. read more...
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15 Jan 2013, 8:33 PM
TB Health Check Wales was a zero tolerance policy aimed at TB testing all cattle in Wales. It was introduced on October 2008 and ran to the end of December 2009. It was a test of all cattle herds in Wales over a 15 month period 'to provide a more accurate picture of the disease'. According to Gwlad, Bovine TB Special Edition Summer 2010 the campaign is costing some £27.7 million ( with funding from EU). With the increased testing an increasing number of positive and inconclusive animals were identified and slaughtered since the programme began. The costs continued to escalate, as did the hardship to cattle owners suffering continuous testing and herd breakdowns. read more...
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8 Jan 2013, 5:54 PM
The Republic of Ireland has been culling badgers since the 1980s and it is understood there was national culling from 1997. Between 1996 and 2006 about 4,000 badgers were culled each year. Most are caught using snares and then shot. One study, known as the Four Areas Project, alleges reductions in cattle TB incidence ranging from 51% to 68% over a five-year culling period. The information is being used to help support badger culling in England. Culling is still underway. However, one vet, formerly practising in Donegal, is questioning the claims being made. He believes perturbation is a much bigger threat than we are being led to believe. He is concerned that Ireland has officially denied any perturbation at all. read more...
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14 Dec 2012, 6:09 PM
In December 2012 a farmer from Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, an alleged bTB hot spot area and venue for one of the infamous pilot badger culls next year, was taken to court for offences relating to bTB controls. The fraud offences could be summarised as deliberate swapping of identities of TB reactor cattle with healthy livestock; retaining the reactor animal and producing milk from it; and in one case having a calf born to a reactor cow. read more...
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25 Nov 2012, 4:50 PM
BOVINE TB ERADICATION STRATEGY - Strengthening the eradication programme and new ways of working. The ANIMAL WELFARE GROUP has submitted an interesting representation to the Government's new Animal Health and Welfare Board. As it contains some useful and interesting information we are setting it out in fu read more...
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3 Nov 2012, 3:48 PM
There are an increasing number of alpacas being dragged into the system, many are pets. The owners are coerced into having them tested using the skin and blood tests that seem to be even more imperfect for this species than they are for cattle. Many alpacas are being slaughtered after testing positive to the badger Brock TB stat pak. There are no alterations to this test assay other than camelid blood. They are then found to have absolutely no sign of bTB, either at post-mortem or following tissue culture. This is the distressing story of one owner and her alpacas. read more...
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20 Oct 2012, 7:44 PM
Farmers want vaccination for their cattle, not badger culls. Despite losing more than half their valuable organic herd of beef cattle, a Devon farming partnership is against the badger cull. Instead they want a 'vaccine that works.' read more...
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15 Oct 2012, 5:50 PM
Dave Purser owns a 48ha pasture farm in Glos. He comes from a local farming family and has kept his own cattle since the 1980′s in a TB ‘hot-spot’. The business has included a commercial beef and calf rearing unit but the herd has never been under TB2 restrictions. Here he gives his views on the bovine TB problems. read more...
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13 Oct 2012, 6:48 PM
Steve Jones has 35 years of experience working within a diverse range of livestock enterprises; from small to medium sized units to large scale agri-business within various locations around the globe. He is trained in organic milk and meat production and have extensive practical and theoretical knowledge in all aspects of the industry including: calf rearing; hoof trimming; herd health; cattle breeding and day to day management at the highest level. He has managed some of the highest yielding dairy herds in the world while attaining consistent levels of hygiene and disease resistance within the livestock under my control. He is also a qualified lecturer in rural and environmental studies. read more...
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Skin test fails – good examples of anergic cows |
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7 Sep 2011, 7:41 PM
Back in April 2008 a Friesian cow with chronic mastitis was reported as a possible source of TB infection to three calves which were positive to the skin test. Whilst the dairy herd had confirmed disease, this cow had passed 11 TB skin tests since 2003. In February 2008 the three calves sucking milk from her were positive to the TB skin test, but they did not have visible lesions at post-mortem examination. The cow passed the skin test. In April 2008, the next three calves (three months old) which were sucking from her also reacted positively to the TB test, but this time one of them had visible lesions at post-mortem. The cow again passed a skin test. The housing conditions of these calves made contact with wildlife extremely difficult, and the three calves only sucked milk from the suspect cow so badgers were not implicated.
Permission was sought from the cow’s owner to carry out a gIFN blood test, in order to find out if the cow was the source of infection of TB to the calves (and maybe to the rest of the dairy herd) as it was suspected that the cow might be an anergic animal. Both gIFN test and a Rapid Antibody test were positive.
In view of the results, the animal was slaughtered. The carcass was condemned because of the amount of TB lesions found (generalised TB). Visible lesions were found in the head nodes, broncho-mediastinal nodes, mesenteric nodes, supramammary glands, udder tissue and liver. All lesions found were typical
of TB. Samples of lesioned material were submitted for mycobacterial culture to the VLA in June, and were returned as positive for M. bovis spoligotype 17 (SB0263 from “http://www.Mbovis.org” www.Mbovis.org). This spoligotype was within its geographical home range, and therefore not unusual for the area of this
breakdown.
Also of interest, with similar cases is this paper, ‘Outbreak of bovine tuberculosis featuring anergy to the skin test, udder lesions and milkborne disease in young calves’ by M. G. Houlihan, MVB, MSc, MRCVS1, F. W. Dixon, BVM&S, MRCVS2 and N. A. Page, BVSc, MRCVS2
(http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/163/12/357.abstract):
Abstract.
A severe outbreak of bovine tuberculosis in a 1300-head, multisite dairy herd in Great Britain had several unusual features, including anergy to the tuberculin skin test, milkborne disease in calves and a farm cat, and a risk of human infection. The outbreak was controlled by culling 221 cattle over 15 months, by using the γ-interferon (γ-IFN) test and by the examination of milk samples. The γ-IFN test detected infected animals that were not detected by the skin test.
Information extracted from Animal Health’s ‘Official Veterinarian Newsletter”, Issue 2, November 2008 - see http://animalhealth.defra.gov.uk/about/publications/ov/ov-newsletter/OV_newsletter_2.pdf
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