[Marches Farmer]

The answer to "how serious" appears to be "you really don't want this!". The facts, from the SAC summary sheet they sent me:

If a sheep has it, they have a 10-20% chance of mortality, and will exhibit one or more of:

• Wasting
• Pneumonia
• progressive paralysis
• Arthritis
• Chronic mastitis

If you've run a virtually closed flock for a number of years, kept careful notes on each animal and not seen any of the above I guess you could be reasonably sure it wasn't in your flock.  To me, the prices appear to dissuade flock-keepers generally from testing for the disease, in much the same way that the cost of FEC counts or the kit to do it yourself does for wormer-resistance.  If these were cheaper a lot more of us would do it and that could really make a difference to the national flock.

[Womble]

Just reporting back: We had to call our vet out for something else, so I thought what the hell and got them to take the first blood tests while they were here. The vet charged £21+VAT + callout fee. The invoice has also just arrived from SAC, and they charged £25+VAT for the analysis. That's for 9 adult sheep tested (all clear ). I don't know how much the annual fee is going to be yet.

Just for info, it looks as though my figures above were thankfully a little bit high. HTH!

[Womble]

Since we've held accredited status for a year now, this seems a good opportunity to report back.

What I would say is that I don't think this scheme has been of any benefit to us SO FAR, in that whilst we've sold breeding stock, they have all gone to NON-MV homes. However, being accredited does mean we can enter stock into the Zwartbles society sales, be in the same pens as the other flocks at shows, borrow tups, etc etc.

The disadvantage is that we couldn't have shown sheep at all in 2016, since they were neither one thing nor the other!

One good thing to report is that the costs were substantially less than I had anticipated. So, if anybody is reading this post and trying to decide whether to take the plunge, these are more reliable figures to work with:



HTH! 

[Me]

I doubt belonging to the scheme will be a money creating exercise

[Buttermilk]

As all my stock was bought in from accredited flocks I only needed one test at the start and not the second one Womble had and I was accredited from then on.

I have sold mostly to non MV flocks but two buyers wanted MV accredited stock so I would have lost those sales without it.

[Tim W]

And there is plenty of MV about ---i bought a ram from a society sale last year which went into the standard quarantine procedure including testing for MV/CLA etc and came back positive for MV ----expensive cull animal! 

[Womble]

Folks, I'm not saying that anybody should or shouldn't be accredited. It's just that when we were trying to decide, it was really hard to find out how much it was going to cost.

One lucky thing for us is that our land doesn't border any other sheep fields (there are rivers and roads in between), so at least we didn't need to also double fence anything. However, if you aren't as lucky as us..... 

[kanisha]

What is the likelihood of transmission of  MV whilst animals are at  a  show say if they were in adjacent pens?   

[pharnorth]

MV and non MV stock are kept separate at shows. Minimum 3m. But usually in separate Marquees and with separate show areas.

[Womble]

..... and with the judges cleaning their hands using one of the regulation baby wipes when moving between the accredited and non-accredited areas! 

None of that answers how easy it is to transmit / catch though?

[Me]

My understanding is it is not that easy, and more prevelant in systems which mean animals are in close proximity, eg. lamb inside etc

[kanisha]

Thankyou :-) . I favour more Tim's idea of health screening and wondered what risks there were if you then exhibited at an event. As mine would also be non accredited.


Currently considering if moving them for a weekend into a more active area for blue tongue virus is worth the risk ..........

[pharnorth]

It is a good question [member=81]kanisha[/member] because the segregation helps protect the accredited sheep, but the non accredited sheep that don't have the virus have no protection against those that may do in adjacent pens.  It is all a risk assessment really and what you are comfortable with.

[kanisha]

Tbh pharnorth. I felt the level of risk given the way the disease is said to be transmitted to be quite low.  I was interested to know if others viewed it the same.

[pharnorth]

Tbh pharnorth. I felt the level of risk given the way the disease is said to be transmitted to be quite low.  I was interested to know if others viewed it the same.

Well I guess everyone who shows non accredited sheep agrees with you- and that includes me.