TB in cattle

RE: TB in cattle

Neil Wheadon — Wed, 28 Aug 2019 18:09:26 GMT

Cow to cow transmittion is very very rare but does happen. The proof is looking at a group of fattening stock in a shed with no large mammal access. A single slaughterhouse case where they have been mixing from the same feeders for 12 months, will lead to the lot being tested twice with zero result.

There are anergic cattle (fail to respond to the skin test). I did deal with one outbreak in a group of dairy cattle where i was the first ministry vet in many years to pull out 5 dairy cows and clinically examine them. 3 sent to slaughter and 2 came back with visible lesions. This was for an intractable outbreak in a large farm.

If the cattle are double fenced from the neighbours, it won't be neighbouring cattle. Even then nose to nose contact wouldn't really spread it. (Do cattle really nose to nose the neighbours?) Cattle are in effect sentinels for wildlife infection. I expect the neighbours will have reactors. Again Geography will show as if you map it properly you will find a focus of infected woodland/scrubland where the problem resides, bordering the contiguous farms

Neil

RE: TB in cattle

Peter Faulkner — Wed, 28 Aug 2019 17:24:13 GMT

[quote user="Neil Wheadon"]

I agree with Iain, with that many skin reactors you will have a number of visible lesioned reactors. What I would pay attention to though is the groupings. You've said nothing about the farming enterprise or cattle numbers. I dealt with a number of cases where all the reactors occurred in distinct epidemiological groups. The best example would be yearlings at isolated grazing where they are extremely vulnerable to wildlife infection. That's you starting point

Neil

[/quote]

You're probably right Neill

It's a relatively small closed herd. I think they all graze together. Wildlife or infected cattle bought in on neighbouring farms will be the cause. They are testing the surrounding herds.

RE: TB in cattle

Neil Wheadon — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 21:59:34 GMT

Neil

RE: TB in cattle

Iain Richards — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 20:49:42 GMT

If half the herd is having to go on just skin test, it sounds like a lot of animals are infected, so I'm guessing it's been bubbling away for some time with infected cattle just getting past the skin test, or bein anergic and not reacting. As far as I am aware, Eire doesn't have the sma ebadger protection as the UK, so fencing the stt off might help. I suggest you look at the TB Advisory service www.tbas.org.uk However the best advice I can give is to treat is as any other infectious disease in terms of biosecurity and biocontainment

RE: TB in cattle

Peter Faulkner — Sat, 24 Aug 2019 11:11:26 GMT

Hi Neil,

As far as I can tell it's the skin test.

It's a great country and they're lovely people, but things do get done differently over there. They've already spoken to their Vet and to the ministry. So I was surprised when they asked to see if I could help shine more light on the problem.

RE: TB in cattle

Lindsey Edwards — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 13:12:58 GMT

Neighbouring herds buying in can be an issue - double fencing etc can be a help but not guaranteed effective if there is a wildlife vector (the impact of clean vs affected badgers and the likelihood of spread into cattle is a different can of worms!). Roadworks and building excavations do seem to have a positive association with TB outbreaks - interesting to find out if any of these have been carried out in the recent past?

RE: TB in cattle

Julian Earl — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 09:47:10 GMT

Neil, you have a private message. Thank you for the information that you sent me. Both Interesting and alarming!

Cheers.

RE: TB in cattle

Neil Wheadon — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 23:02:32 GMT

[quote user="Peter Faulkner"]I have family in Southern Ireland with an outbreak of TB in their beef cattle and they're going to lose about half their herd.[/quote]

That's hard, skin test or gamma testing? Sounds like the latter.

[quote user="Peter Faulkner"]There's been no animal movements on to the farm for a very long time. So they're struggling to understand how the infection has got in.[/quote]

Closed herds are not immune to TB outbreaks. It primarily depends on the distribution of their land (do they have outlying fields) and proximity of local outbreaks through wildlife spread.

[quote user="Peter Faulkner"] They've been told there's nothing that can be done to control them. [/quote]

Southern Ireland do have a wildlife control protocol. A google search will tell you that. However I learnt something in that they are looking to vaccinate badgers, though the uptake of immunity is low at 33% (always a problem, but an improvement) and they use a catch, test , release or cull policy on badgers.

[quote user="Peter Faulkner"]I know it will probably lie outside of DEFRA's influence[/quote]

We're talking Southern Ireland here

[quote user="Peter Faulkner"]Does anyone know if there's a way for them to get help with controlling the badger population on their farm?[/quote]

An interesting question to ask on a public forum especially a veterinary one. I would though advise a spot of caution as farms need clean badgers to keep out the TB infected ones, so you may be messing with the wrong ones.

[quote user="Peter Faulkner"]Is there anything specific they can do to prevent another outbreak?[/quote]

To be absolutely honest they should be talking to their local veterinary practice or to government vets in Southern Ireland.

I hope they cope with loosing half the farm, it can break some farmers, it's a tough disease for everyone

Neil

RE: TB in cattle

Sarah Keir — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 19:18:46 GMT

Eire/South Ireland is not UK so DEFRA/APHA have no jurisdiction there. I would not be happy commenting on the legal situation regarding wildlife control and protection in another country, but you may find someone on here that is happy to.

RE: TB in cattle

Julian Earl — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 19:16:49 GMT

I was unlucky enough to identify the first case of TB in Lancashire a good thirty years ago and the farmer was a dealer. That is the only way for TB to move into anew area across the country. Cattle do not fly, nor do badgers as far as I am aware! and buying in cattle from affected areas is madness ! I had anothr positive in Lincolnshire about twenty-three years ago. And guess what? He'd bought catle in as well! I suggested at a DEFRA-meting years ago that surely there is a blatant requirement for movement restrictions of cattle from out of the south-west etc. to apparently clear areas? As a point of interest perhaps, the first of these in Lancashire failed the TB-test but was not clinically ill and yet it had Myc. tb. isolated from internal lesions when culled. I could hardly believe the TB-test readings and thought that Ihad mis-read the swellings [ + 1mm and +4mm as I recall] and had to really convince myself not to report it just as inconclusive instead of a failure! The one here in Lincolnshire had no lesions at post-mortem but everything was soon re-tested just in case if I recall correctly!

So in answer to your question. Human movement of cattle has to be to lame. Nothing else is possible for farms miles apart.