Tuesday 8th August 2017
TB testing!!
A busy day on the smallholding and also our very first TB testing!!! The event itself went fine, getting the cows into the Collecting Area and through the crush is the easy bit, waiting three days to see if we have any reactors: not so easy. Although actually, we have no control over this so we will simply get on with life and wait and see.
The testing was done by Grahame from Torch Vets in South Molton. Our vets (Rachel at Market Vets) don’t do the government TB testing which is a shame but it is not a bad idea to have two vets to call upon when you have the variety of stock we do. Grahame is a bit of an alpaca expert and so we took the opportunity to talk to him about Jupiter’s teeth which need filing down. Again, this is not something that Rachel can do. Having seen Jupiter, Grahame agreed that his teeth do need sorting and so this is now set up for Friday when Grahame returns to do the TB readings – the scary bit!!!
TB testing is controversial, or rather TB in cattle is controversial because of the badger connection. We live in a high risk area and whilst we have seen no evidence of badgers on or near our land, TB is prevalent in cattle in this area. The advice is to be very aware of any badger activity and take steps to avoid any badgers coming into contact with your cattle. This includes such things as not leaving food out, clearing spillages and not having licks that badgers can access.
As for the test itself, each animal is injected with a culture mix of both bovine (cattle) and avian (bird) TB. The reason for this is to make the test a ‘comparative’ test. Any resulting lumps are then compared to see if the reaction to the bovine TB is stronger or weaker than the avian TB or (best of all) non-existent. The results will be one of three: clear, fail or inconclusive.
When Grahame returns on Friday he will feel for any lumps and measure them accordingly!!! We won’t spend any time looking for the lumps ourselves, instead we will be doing lots of observing to see if either Parsley or Thyme feel like bulling any time soon!!! A MUCH better use of our time!!!
TB testing is controversial, or rather TB in cattle is controversial because of the badger connection. We live in a high risk area and whilst we have seen no evidence of badgers on or near our land, TB is prevalent in cattle in this area. The advice is to be very aware of any badger activity and take steps to avoid any badgers coming into contact with your cattle. This includes such things as not leaving food out, clearing spillages and not having licks that badgers can access.
As for the test itself, each animal is injected with a culture mix of both bovine (cattle) and avian (bird) TB. The reason for this is to make the test a ‘comparative’ test. Any resulting lumps are then compared to see if the reaction to the bovine TB is stronger or weaker than the avian TB or (best of all) non-existent. The results will be one of three: clear, fail or inconclusive.
When Grahame returns on Friday he will feel for any lumps and measure them accordingly!!! We won’t spend any time looking for the lumps ourselves, instead we will be doing lots of observing to see if either Parsley or Thyme feel like bulling any time soon!!! A MUCH better use of our time!!!