Triplets, toast-hungry sheep and maddeningly meaningless TB test results – George Hosford on the exasperating limbo that farmers face
All images: George Hosford
Below is a shot of the long walk home for our huge flock, after shearing on a Sunday morning. We were very keen to get the 11 ewes clipped, seeing as the weather at this point was seriously warming up, and lambing just around the corner. It seems to happen every year: the first ewe lambs the day after shearing. Sure enough, the next morning Conker popped out her three lambs. Triplets are always tricky to rear, as three onto two (teats) just doesn’t go, and the stronger two will always pinch most of the milk to the detriment of the third. So after the colostrum had been shared, the prettiest one was taken away to be pampered with four feeds a day. We saw three more ewes lamb in the next two days: at time of writing the score is eight ewe lambs and one boy.
For the more professionally minded reader currently cocking a sneer at our miniscule flock, I should point out that, after decades of trying to find a way to make a profit out of sheep farming – and failing over and over again – our sheep enterprise was long ago relegated to hobby status. The only reason for their presence on the farm now is as entertainment and teaching aids for our school visitors. Being tame, it is very easy to take a class of thirty children into the field where the greedy sheep will promptly get up close in search of toast. It is a fair enough transaction – some crunchy food in exchange for top quality entertainment. The children can feel the wool, discuss the chewing of cud and talk about the lambs. Some even get hugged.
Inconclusive nonsense
The handsome beasties pictured opposite have had to be isolated from the rest of our herd, being the unfortunate recipients of an ‘inconclusive’ test result at our TB test at the end of March. This is a serious blow: we now have to be closed until we test clear.
The category ‘inconclusive reactor’ (IR) seems to me to be utterly useless. Either our animals have been exposed to the TB organism … or they have not. As I understand it, having spoken to many vets, an animal reacts to the TB test vaccine if it has been exposed to TB. Full stop.
However DEFRA, through the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), deems that the reaction lump has to be above a certain size in mm in order to be classified as a reactor. In other words, so that they will take it away and compensate the farmer for the loss of the animal.
However, between ‘reactor’ and ‘clear’ there is this murky category of ‘inconclusive’, which has its own unique set of associated rules. An inconclusive has to be isolated from the rest of the herd until it can be tested again – it gets a second chance 60 days later. If it is inconclusive again, it becomes a full reactor and will be taken by APHA. If clear, it can return to the herd – but it will never lose the label that says it was once an inconclusive, and its presence in the herd prevents the farmer from reaching CHKS status for the herd (entitling him or her to extend the period between regular TB tests from six months to one year, which is hugely helpful).
The only way to get out of this situation is therefore to dispose of the animal as soon as possible. It can legally go for slaughter, but if it’s a beef animal it may not be fit (big enough) – meaning the farmer inevitably loses out, receiving a lower price than if they’d been able to keep it until fully grown.
Things are more complicated for dairy farmers: the IR cow may be carrying a calf, forcing a difficult decision – whether to keep her until the calf is born, or sell her quickly to reduce the risk of spreading infection to the rest of the herd.
It’s not all badgers
Underpinning all this frustration is the very poor standard of the test used for regular TB testing, which relies on the measuring of lumps.
The TB skin test is the common name for the
Single Intradermal Comparative Cervical Tuberculin (SICCT) test. This skin test is regarded as the definitive indicator of infection by the bacterium that causes TB in cattle – Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis). It is the required test in the EU, and has proved to be a reliable tool worldwide.
Two types of tuberculin, one made from killed Mycobacterium bovis and the other from killed Mycobacterium avium, (a bird-related bacteria) are injected into the skin on the side of the neck, approximately three inches apart. The animal is then examined three days later: if the bovine lump is larger than the bird lump, then it has reacted. The reason for the bird-related vaccine is to account for background levels of infection in the local environment: it is the difference in the size of the two lumps which is the all-important factor.
It’s worth recalling the TB cull, which controversially involved capturing and dispatching badgers – a known vector of bovine TB. In Dorset, the five- to seven-year cull periods across various parts of the county led to a reduction in new TB outbreaks of over 50 per cent. This has taught us two main things: firstly that reducing badger numbers can reduce TB in cattle, and secondly, that reducing badger numbers will never eradicate TB. It could only ever be one of a number of tools in the box, and only of any justifiable use if we are a great deal more rigorous in removing TB from cattle herds than we are currently.
After many years of TB levels rapidly expanding, it is now everywhere, deeply embedded. And all too often, with current testing methods, it is lying undetected and infectious in many herds.
It is utterly depressing, with insufficient vigour being put into properly dealing with the problem.
A number of things are needed:
Better testing
Better on-farm hygiene, keeping cows and badgers apart, and more rigorous health screening of cattle.
A TB vaccine, which can be distinguished from actual TB in animals
An acknowledgement that TB is in the wild deer population and action on this, too
Allow for badger culling in areas where TB seems endemic.
I know of one large dairy farm where any animals that show the slightest reaction to the skin test are taken out: a zero tolerance policy. There is a lot to commend this approach: it seems costly to the farmer initially, but in the long term it is probably the cheapest and most effective solution.
Useless bees
At the end of April Will sowed the spring section of our cover crop seed supply for next season. Alongside the lovely bright turnip plot he has sown buckwheat, spring vetch, daikon radish and camelina. On the far side of the turnips is a lively plot of winter vetch, and beyond that, over the hedge, is a patch of winter-sown phacelia, which is fully in flower, making us very popular with the bees which have just arrived on the farm from the cherry fields of Kent: we now have around 40 hives in different locations across the farm.
Robert Hogben, from Dorchester, has been bringing his bees here for many years, and around 20 hives live on the farm all year round. Robert was keen that the new bees are close to the beans this year, but after careful observation, I doubt the value to the farmer of bees in the bean crop. I have watched as they stick their proboscis through the side of the flower tube, directly into the drops of nectar, rather than fight their way into the flower from the top – therefore they do not collect any pollen with which to fertilise the next flower they visit … do not pass go, and do not collect £200.
There could be a risk that the drilled hole would actually cause the flower to abort, though I don’t have the heart to mention this to Robert. I would however be very grateful to anyone who could shed some (scientifically rigorous) light on this.
Follow George and his updates from Traveller’s Rest Farm on his blog viewfromthehill.org.uk
