Wern Newsletter Autumn 2006
Tuberculosis
The curse of TB is moving ever closer. There has been a recent change in testing
interval to yearly for the parishes of Llannefydd and Bylchau, with the
surrounding parishes changing to 2 yearly. This means that as well as more
frequent TB testing, cattle over 15 months of age need to be pre movement tested, before leaving the
holding.
Ruthin Farmers Auction are going to hold non testing markets on Tuesdays when the cattle won’t have to be tested pre sale provided they go straight to slaughter or to exempt finishing units. For other marts and on other days then pre movement testing must occur.
If your TB test is due then DEFRA will pay for the pre movement testing of store cattle, if they are
informed before hand and its done at the same time. However this will only cover cattle movements for
the next 60 days from the day the test commenced. After that then the individual farmer must pay. At
present the costs are on day 1 a visit, then hourly rate of £72/hour plus vat. On the second day, a visit,
then the first 10 minutes of time are free and hourly work rate after that. We will want them through a
crush on the second day as well so basically the costs depend on your system.
Cell Counts
Nationally as well as locally milk somatic cell counts are creeping upwards. In many cases it looks like an increase in chronic cases which are failing to respond to therapy. So for November and December only you can get 6 milk samples checked for bacteriology for £25, provided all samples are received on the one day. The samples can be from any 6 cows or quarters, chronic cases, clinical ones or cows close to drying off. The samples can be frozen until 6 are collected and then brought into the surgery together.
Sample pots and advice on sampling can be obtained from either Gwen Edwards or Tanya Curnow in Ruthin.
Staggers
The mild wet autumn with lush grass for the time of year has led to an outbreak of staggers across the
practice. As cattle have a limited ability to store magnesium the level in the blood depends on daily
intake. Thus anything that upsets this leads to an increased risk. Remember for every cow with clinical
signs there will be others that are borderline deficient and could crash at any time. As time is of the
essence for treatment it is worth keeping a bottle of magnesium in the pick up to give under the skin at
the same time as phoning us.
Preventative measures include
- Feeding of concentrates with increased levels of magnesium, but this is expensive if the cows do not need the extra feeding
- Oral magnesium bullets, 2 per cow should protect for 4-6 weeks
- Supplement the water trough, however this only works if the cows have no access to water from elsewhere
- Mineral licks and buckets provide unpredictable intake as they rely on the cow to consume enough every day
Management factors which reduce cow stress such as not moving them from the hill to lowland in the driving rain and buffer feeding with some big bale or hay to slow gut transit time can also reduce incidence.
Fattening lambs
We have been doing many post mortems in fattening lambs at the minute. The main causes of death have been pneumonia or clostridial infection, even in fully vaccinated flocks. However there were also significant worm burdens in some of the lambs which, as well as reducing growth rates will leave them more susceptible to other infections. In units with high mortality rates, blanket antibiotic therapy has been used to stop the disease following diagnosis.
As with staggers in cows trying to reduce stress levels in lambs and only carrying out necessary procedures can help. As always if you have any queries or concerns we can be contacted at any of the surgeries.