[Marches Farmer]

Don't know if those of you with rare breeds are aware you can register them on the defra.gov.uk website so that vaccination will be offered rather than culling in the event of disease outbreak.  It's to maintain genetic diversity in native breeds.

[Blacksheep]

I don't understand this, if it is ok to use vaccination for some breeds why not in the national flock?  Presumably there are some kind of limitations to vaccinated sheep/lambs entering the food chain?

[SteveHants]

I don't get it either - I can see it in rare breeds still kept in an orignal geographic location. I would have thought it was more important for the national flock to keep newer and highly commercial strains of sheep.

[Marches Farmer]

As I understand it, if vaccination had been an option in the 2001 F&M outbreak stock on the Breeds at Risk register would have been offered it before commercial flocks. There are lots of those, after all.  DEFRA understands that genetic diversity is crucial to livestock health and may be vital to feeding the planet in the future.  Native sheep breeds, for example, are routinely finished off grass whereas Continental breeds may struggle to do so, particularly in bad weather.   The Merino, for example, was used to improve the fleece of the Southdown in the late 1700's but couldn't cope with the British weather.

[Blacksheep]

I understand preservation of genetic diversity/rare breeds etc, I just don't understand that if vaccination is an option why it wouldn't be an option for the national flock rather than compulsory culling, obviously subject to availability and accepting that rare breeds may get priority until vaccination production could be stepped up.

[Marches Farmer]

I think that's the consideration - if you have only limited amounts of vaccine available (think Bluetongue a few years ago or the possible situation when a vaccine for SBV becomes available) you have to start somewhere.

[kanisha]

Isn't the reticence for vaccination of the national flock more to do with the economics of a countries status for export markets?

[Blacksheep]

Yes thats what I thought Kanisha, rather than about vaccine, if there was an outbreak then vaccine could potentially be used in a 'ring' in flocks around the outbreak initially, rather than culling which is what happens, hence I don't think that quantity of vaccine available is the real issue.  Once you use the vaccine then you can't declare your country FMD free, hence the problem with export of meat, if you use the vaccine  in some breeds then in theory we would not be considered FMD free for export, unless there is some allowance that using it in certain breeds doesn't count for this status.  Sorry but struggling with the logic of it all!   

[kanisha]

I think that sums it up quite well

[Rosemary]

See topic in Cattle

[Marches Farmer]

Remember, we're talking rare breeds here.  If you have a particularly good ram and he can be vaccinated and quarantined you at least have a chance to bank his semen to use on females that may have survived in another part of the country.  If he's dead he's dead.

[Richard Underwood]

Being on the Breeds at Risk register doesn't guarantee anything but it is just a marker so that the DEFRA vets will think about the options a bit longer before ordering a cull of the flock. So it might be they get a stay of execution until they test positive for a disease rather than being included in a contiguous cull policy. Vaccination is only one of the options.

FYI SteveHants, with some of the rare sheep breeds there are only a few hundred in the UK - less than on a single large farm with commercial breeds. Where they are geographically spread disease is less of a worry but some have a strong regional focus so a disease in that area could, if no special precautions were taken, lead to the every individual in the breed being culled and the breed dying out for good.

[Marches Farmer]

The Herdwick in Cumbria and the 2 Dartmoor breeds spring to mind.  It would be such a waste to lose breeds that have been selectively bred over hundreds of years to do well in their particular part of the country.  The stratification system used by many commercial farmers also relies on using pure native breeds to produce a mule then another native breed as a terminal sire to produce the lamb wanted by the supermarket buyers.

[kanisha]

Vaccination is only one of the options.

what other options are there?

[Richard Underwood]

I"What other options are there?" - it depends on the circumstances.

One that has been discussed is not subjecting flocks on the Breeds at Risk register to an automatic cull under any contiguous cull policy (like DEFRA had during the FMD outbreak in 2001) but allowing them to be isolated to see if they do develop symptoms and only culling them if they do. But it could equally be relaxing movement restrictions to allow specific flocks to be 'evacuated' from an area. Many of the new disease threats there may not be a vaccination option so protecting breeds that are at risk may need some thought - not something the DEFRA bureaucracy is always good at in a crisis.