Hot topics making dairy herd headlines

First, a recap of where we are with TB. Of the 14 cattle that went off after our previous test two months ago, 7 had TB lesions and 7 didn’t.

We keep cattle at two sites – milking cows and very young calves here at home, dry cows a mile or so away at the land we rent. All the cattle that have been affected have been at this away land. I know it’s tempting providence, but there hasn’t been as much as a pimple here at home.

Back when we lost the first case (six months ago), the vets told me they were fairly sure the source of infection was wildlife. There isn’t a field on this away land that doesn’t adjoin a wood. You can draw your own conclusions from that – I know I’ve drawn mine.

Our next test showed we had 3 more reactors. After having 14 reactors, 3 was quite a good result. I can’t describe the agonising that runs through your mind while you wait for a test – will it be another 14? Will it be 28? Will it be enough to decimate your herd numbers? All these are perfectly possible scenarios and, inevitably, you start to think about the consequences of each of those scenarios.

The 3 reactors this time were 15-month-old or so heifers we are starting to put to the bull – that is 7 that have succumbed out of 23. They must have been exposed to a really bad source of infection. It was clearly a serious challenge to their systems and they succumbed. Would it be best to take all the cattle in such a group and clear the whole group out in one hit, or will they all go eventually at subsequent tests, but it will drag out over months, thus delaying the day when we will be clear?

Anti-cull agenda

Our local press is forever publishing anti-badger cull letters. These irritate me, but, in the circumstances, I think I am entitled to be irritated. They claim science to be on their side; that culling doesn’t work, but evidence from around the world would suggest otherwise. Now the evidence in this country is starting to confirm culling works.

I am convinced the motivation for these letters is a vegan agenda. The letter writers can write fulsomely about why badger culls don’t work, but can rarely resist having a go at dairy farming as well. They like to compare the life of a dairy cow to that of a battery hen and suggest dairy farming be confined to the history books.

The real damage they do is influence the public at large. As long as people believe or are told the link between TB in cattle and wildlife is tenuous, they will be anti-cull. As long as a large body of anti-cull public opinion exists, why would politicians go further down that sort of road? There’s no point; why would they?

I expect you will have noticed plenty exists for politicians to busy themselves with at the moment anyway. The vet tells me wildlife is more than 90% responsible for my problems – that is as sure as you are likely to get in the circumstances. Even if it were only 10%, that is a figure that cannot be ignored – you will never achieve eradication while any of the problem is ignored. At some stage, the bullet will have to be bitten (is that a sort of pun?).

Antibiotics attention

I’ve no wish to count the number of farming periodicals that find their way into this house every month – it’s well into double figures. Most of these arrive free – the irony is, I buy one of them weekly.

About half I sort of scan read; I read the article if it’s of interest to me. The other half stay in their cellophane wraps. They live for a while on our kitchen table, on an unseemly pile, and, about once a month (usually just after the pile starts to fall on to the floor), they find their way into the bucket of our loader, which transfers them to our recycling department, where they are introduced to a box of matches.

But within the articles I have read in the past month, a recurring theme has been apparent – the use of antibiotics in farm animals and the consequent knock-on effect on antibiotic resistance on humans. The number of articles on this issue is out of proportion to any other.

I have no problem saying every system of animal husbandry requiring that blanket use of antibiotics – in flock or herd, regardless of species – as a routine is flawed. An often quoted example is dry cow therapy. For years it was best practice to introduce long-acting antibiotics to a cow’s quarters at drying off. Not anymore.

Now farmers have enough information about individual cows’ udder health for them to be able to target the cows that actually require treatment. We do that here and I know of milk producers who only treat 10% of their cows – not many years ago, they treated them all. That is a good step in the right direction, but how do we go further?

Much of the answer to that lies in the animal itself. Dairy cows, for example, can be culled for many different reasons, but today, you can selectively breed for longevity. If a bull comes from a family that has good longevity then there is a good prospect that family was able to survive all the challenges that came along, and so will its progeny in the future.

It is inevitable natural selection will take place. I’ve been on high status pedigree dairy farms where their “special” cows – those that would do well in the show ring and from which bulls were bred – would spend their cosseted lives in a loose box and all they had to do was walk to the milking parlour every day. What’s the point of breeding a bull out of a cow like that? None at all. You need to breed a bull out of a cow that thrives in the hurly-burly environment of a large cubicle shed; a cow that can cope with the long walks to grazing every day.

I am often reminded of the practice in New Zealand called the Easy Care System of Sheep Management. Sheep were kept in flocks of about 1,000 ewes and looked after by one man. He was so busy, he only had time to visit each flock once a week.

Some called it appalling; some called it neglectful, and it was probably both those. But after a few years, it worked well because only the fittest survived and it was only their progeny survived in the flock.

Milk buyers are taking an interest in antibiotic use and that is what will effect change. Nothing drives change more than money. Nothing made me think more about the value of my manure and slurry than the day I put £1,000 worth of fertiliser in the broadcast spreader.