Re: living with Bovine Tuberculosis

Phil Elkins — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:10:11 GMT

Clive,

Having spent 2 years working in Devon followed by a year in South Cheshire/North Shrops I fully understand the burden which TB places on both a practice and an individual, and one which I may add performed more TB tests than anyone else in the practice at one of those jobs. I have also seen the devastation and depression it can bring to a farmer.

In my time in Devon I heard many anecdotes on how to control the badger to cattle spread (as TB testing is the best tool we have for reducing cattle to cattle/cattle to wildlife spread) ranging from DEFRA's weak view of "let's fence off known badger latrines to avoid contact with cattle" to aspirin in apples to gassing with a car exhaust, and even the product 'Etizon' which claims to have great efficacy against bovine TB by adding to the water trough (see above forum on alternative medicines for my view)!

There is no doubt in my mind that badger control is essential in attempting to control TB (as eradication is like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow) and also that badger numbers are escalating in rural areas. This is evidenced by the damage caused to fields of standing maize, and the case in Cheshire of a TB outbreak in dairy calves after the farmer discovered badgers drinking milk from the calf feeders.

The question is how is the best way to approach this. In my view it is a controlled national cull, but I'm leaving in a dreamworld so it is left to the farmers, but anecdotal evidence suggests it is possible. A small group of farmers in a parish on the edge of Dartmoor (lots of shared grazing and open land for badgers) were so fed up with the TB situation they got together to discuss it. They opted to 'deal' with any badgers they saw, without necessarily going after them. 2 years after this meeting the whole parish is free from TB for the first time in living memory, so hope is out there!

Unfortunately, until the government open their eyes to the threat that TB holds, and farmers wake up to the fact that mass movement of stock across the country is a massive threat to disease control then I believe TB will continue to spread. So I suppose I'm saying any farmer from Shrops/Cheshire/Staffs area that buys replacement stock from any further south, let alone Taunton market is a blithering idiot and should be not compensated!

Good luck!

Phil