Blue Tongue

[Colin]

The Blue Tongue situation is a major concern with a fourth case found today. Looks to me like there are two main hopes: a hard winter to kill off the midges and a vaccine. The latter looks hopeful......see this extract from the Warmwell site (http://www.warmwell.com/):

'Journalists should be reassuring farmers that the BTV-8 is most certainly being developed - and with the urgency of its becoming widely available so apparent - will be ready in a very few months'

So fingers crossed we may get something in early 2008.

Colin

[Colin]

The news today is not good with the government confirming that we now have an 'outbreak' i.e. Blue Tongue is circulating between livestock and insects in the infected area. So it's now here. Whilst we're waiting for a vaccone and/or a cold snap, does anybody have any good insect repellant ideas. I've used Spot-On for flies but it is far from 100% effective, particularly around the legs.

Colin

[Saffy]

Not sure how it is spelt but I think Benzyl Benzoate is pretty good isn't it?

But it needs putting on daily.

It keeps midges off horses that get sweet itch.

Vets and chemists sell it as Kill Itch.

Stephanie

[Broomcroft]

This is courtesy of Schering-Plough to possibly help avoid bluetongue:

Here are some simple husbandry changes and practical midge control measures may help break the livestock infection cycle of Bluetongue disease:

- Housing livestock during times of maximum midge activity – from dusk until dawn – will significantly reduce biting rates and potential likelihood of infection

- Protecting livestock housing openings with fine mesh netting or coarser material impregnated with insecticide

- Tackling potential midge breeding grounds and use of pour-on insecticides approved for use on sheep and cattle may reduce risk of infection to some degree in certain circumstances

- Identify and destroy midge breeding sites - the Culicoides midges that carry the virus usually breed on animal dung and moist soils, either bare or covered in short grass. Turning off taps, mending leaks and filling in or draining damp areas will help dry up breeding areas. Dung heaps and straw bedding should be removed at least weekly to break the immature midge breeding cycle

- Apply insecticides approved for use on sheep and cattle - the DEFRA technical review on Bluetongue maintains that targeted use of synthetic pyrethroids – such as deltamethrin, applied weekly in and around animal housing and directly onto the target animals – should be effective as a practical disease defence strategy. But farmers need to speak to their vet about using insecticides as their use for midge control is off label and meat withdrawal periods will need modification.

- If you are using Coopers Spot On at weekly intervals, observe a 29-day withdrawal period for cattle and 63 days for sheep. The zero withdrawal period for milking dairy cows is unchanged

PS. The midges are terrible here today.

[Inger]

Could you give those ultra-violet insect zapping lamps a try? If you have electricity in your animal barns, you could hang a few from the rafters, both inside and just outside the barn and zap any midges flying around.

We have little Fantail birds here that do the job for us. Swallows are handy too, but I don't think they'd still be in England at this time of the year?

[Broomcroft]

If you want to avoid midges then speak to a Scotsman. Not the Scotmen scare midges, it's just they have to deal with them. Looking on the web, midges in Scotland are the most blood-thirsty in the world. And it's only the pregnant midges that attack you apparently, so watch out for those with big bellies, or put up netting that only thin midges can get through, end of problem.

Seriously, I met a Scotman last year who lived on the shores of loch Lomond and in spite of the fact he was a real bruiser, he admitted on the quiet that the only thing that workled was a woman's facial treatment which he used all the time, but I can't recall which one. Something like Oil of Ulay but that not one. I didn't ask him how he made this discovery.

[Sylvia]

You are right, Inger, the Swallows have already left. Despite the indifferent summer they did really well this year and for a time it was quite literally hair raising as they chose to swoop in and out through the narrow doors of the stone barns at exactly the same time as we walked in. No such problems in the big cow barns of course.

I thought that some people were less likely to attract midges because of their diet, can anyone confirm this. Not that I imagine we will want to feed all our animals whatever the magic ingredient is.

[Jo Kemp]

I am on the Shetland Sheep email link and one of our members is in Holland and her flock has blue tongue cases. She is treating the victims but has just put down a 13year old sheep as she was simply ot coping. We are going to have to live with this virus but Merial (the Pirbright culprit) has been banned from working with live virus' and it was due to produce the vaccine for the strain8 which is the European strain (and ours) Don't know if the government will give Pirbright more funding to clean up its act and then allow Merial to get going in time for Spring 08. The Dutch certainly want to vaccinate p.d.q.
Jo

[Saffy]

Someone asked about repelling midges through diet.

Horse owners do this by feeding their animals garlic in different forms, usually powdered or dried and flaked.

I tend to up it gradually as they can be suspicious that it might be something medicinal otherwise and I have heard tales of upset stomachs but I think that might have been very large quantities. ???

Stephanie

[bjreroberts]

Does anyone know what the mortatility rate is in cattle?

All I've found on the web is reference to the 70% in sheep, but no figure for cattle. Some of the articles suggest it is not really a problem for cattle, but they are the main vector for the disease.

[Broomcroft]

Researching the web, what I have found is that it is thought that the mortality rate in sheep in the UK would be more like 30%, not 70% due to the particular strain(s), and about 10% mortality in cattle.

[Colin]

I'm assuming that any animal confirmed to have BT will be slaughtered, so losses will be higher ? Or am I mistaken ?

Colin

[Mark Bowles]

Last week we were in the Bluetongue zone set out by DEFRA, our whole county of Leicestershire, i didnt fully understand the implications. Defra have now set a zone 150km from the outbreaks which runs a dividing lineline up the middle of the county so we are 4 miles outside the zone, with massive releif.
I hear today there were NO buyers for cattle and sheep at Melton Mowbray weekly market, Melton is in the zone, the market was closed in despair. The existing slaughter houses within the zone have no capacity to slaughter the extra animals that would ordinarliy go outside the zone, Birmingham, Uttoxeter ect, to be killed, so there is nowhere to go as Defra have said animals cant leave the zone once in it even for slaughter.
Where does this leave the smallholders with Dexters within the zone, which is quite large. They may have to travel many miles to kill, and return the same miles to pick up their meat.
They cant sell live animals to anyone outside the zone.
What about next years Traditional breed sale at Melton?
What about next years shows in the zone?
Bluetongue with its DEFRA regulations, on top of what we already have, will i fear, kill cattle keeping in some areas stone dead.
Lets face it, if you knew what you now know, would you start to keep cattle..and sheep.....i think not!
Depressed Mark

[Broomcroft]

In a word, no Mark. If meat was doubled in price and became rarer and more of a special treat, and livestock farms were spread out more over the country, then it might work.

I wonder how many potential Dexter keepers have been put off now and may never keep cattle at all? Or sheep. Let's face it, we're all just waiting for what's next.

[Woodmagic]

It can certainly leave one depressed, but I think anyone who farms for any length of time knows that bad luck always goes in batches, and usually when one reaches the depths, something crops up. Lets hope they come up with a suitable vaccine. I cannot fathom the present Government thinking, the midge will travel whatever restrictions they put on the cattle. I feel so terribly sorry for anyone in the zone. I was talking to one sizable Dexter breeder last night, and couldn’t think of much comfort. I think the NFU may try to lever some sense out of the present impossible position. It is a pity that so few parliamentarians have any conception of how the countryside ticks.