We listed them on the posting linked to above, but will do so again as in the years since we wrote the list, many things may have changed - and not for the better.
* Testing cattle 4 - 6 times / year instead of once (or as directed by Defra). 2 days per week x 6 = 12 days labour for up to 4 people. Adding up to 300 hours / year.
* Gamma ifn used in non veterinary circumstances, and regularly requiring retests. Gamma tests are not tied in with skin tests and may delay their usefulness.
* Stress on cattle during confinement and testing. Weight loss on beef cattle, and growing dairy heifers is estimated at about 7 - 10 days each time tested. Six / eight weeks loss of growth in a year.
* Abortions and early embryonic death in pregnant cattle after testing.
* Loss of her calf and breeding value of a slaughtered pregnant cow.
* Extended calving index for dairy herds and barren suckler cows. Herd genetic losses.
* Trauma and even death to animals resisting penning and needles. Suckler calves particularly at risk.
* Injuries to stockmen / vets involved in handling these cattle.
* Slaughter of unsaleable calves costing £15 - £17.50 head to knackerman. ** (see below)
* Sale but at much reduced price of calves, under licence to avoid shooting. Now mandatory under welfare rules and pressure from milk processors. (see below)
* No sale for store or breeding stock or newly calved dairy/beef heifers/ bulls except under very limited Defra license system and often at much reduced prices.
* Compensation for animals bought in under license to a herd under restriction, which subsequently become reactors, halved.
* No licensed 'On' movements until at least one herd test completed after a breakdown. Leaves a gap in fattening units' cash flow.
* No entries into Agricultural Shows or specialist sales for exceptional breeding stock.
* Cancellation of farm sales, extended farm tenancies and retirement planning in tatters.
* Overstocking on home (Tb restricted) holding, extra cattle need extra food, bedding and even housing.
* Conversely, loss of volume and profile bonuses on level milk payments from milk buyers. Can be substantial amounts.
* Replacement stock, especially with organic, rare or endangered breeds of cattle - unavailable.
* Bio security risks of bringing in replacement cattle from other herds to a 'closed herd' under restriction.
* Insurance premiums for Tb up ten fold, with cover reduced by half for existing policies. In the event of a breakdown, cover will not be re instated, and new policies as rare as hens' teeth. 'Exposure to risk is too great', the man said. Most livestock farmers now un-insurable for zTb.
*Sales of 'green top milk' or unpasteurised cheeses / yoghurts - banned. Product in store destroyed.
* Sales of all raw milk into food chain from 'reactor animals' - banned. Disposal - difficult.
So what has prompted this reminder of the uncompensated costs of a TB breakdown?
Many farmers who have experienced a breakdown in the last few years will have received a letter, inviting them to quantify these uncompensated costs. The project partners include Defra, Apha, Welsh Assembly Government, Scotland's Rural College, Edinburgh (SRUC) and assorted data processors.
One of our main contributors receiving this letter is in the middle of a nightmare restriction, involving the different arms of Apha which have yet to find a way of communicating with each other, let alone the farmer concerned. And so was keen to let rip - until he read on in his letter that the breakdown SRUC were investigating was in October 2014.
Now I don't know about most of our readers, but events last week sometimes pass me by, so almost 5 years ago??? Seriously?
Nevertheless, he dutifully put a price on the extra labour for testing, pedigree animals sold on the hook instead of for breeding and many of the other 'advantages' of TB restriction we have listed above. There was also an opportunity to add extra comments, which you will be unsurprised to learn, he added with a vengeance. Especially the brutal wording of some Defra phone calls and letters.
** What else has changed in more recent times, is pressure from Farm Assurance desk jockeys and some milk buyers re the disposal of surplus calves from a dairy herd under restriction. Defra have kindly made existing calf isolation units pretty nearly unworkable, and new ones difficult to licence.
Once in one of these units, any animal remains in the slaughter-only system for its lifetime (Finishing Units only) and cannot be sold on the open market, further reducing its value.
Do dairy farms stack them up? double-decker calf units maybe?
We also have that EU Directive - [link] coming in on 21st April 2021, and applying both to 'third countries' or Member states, which gives the Union the powers to ban products from any country which they deem to be a risk. And that we most certainly are.
With disparate groups of farmers trying to chase badgers for 42 nights annually and catch around 70 per cent of them, while all the above rain down on our cattle and restricted farms, 365 days a year.
And in Wales, the situation is even worse, with vaccination having taken the place of a proposed cull. This despite the fact that four separate trials in two countries have vaccinated badgers - [link] ( pre screened ones too) and as far as numbers of cattle breakdowns were concerned, achieved absolutely nothing. Zilch.
Your contributor inquired of the questioner operating this latest survey, as to its purpose.
"To help shape future TB policy" was the answer.
Well that would be a first. Defra have no policy - [link] regarding zTB apart from dreaming up more imaginative ways of reducing our cattle population. Their collective heads remain firmly in the sand on eradicating the disease we know as zoonotic Tuberculosis from any other source.
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