[Me]

I think the human right act prevents enforced treatment etc

[paddy1200]

I think people coming through airports from high risk places fir TB have a chest x- Ray to look for TB. I am not sure what happens if it shows active disease, treatment at our expense I suspect. Other countries, e.g. Australia, require a chest x-Ray plus radiologist report to see if there is evidence of current or past infection as part of the immigration process before you leave your country of origin.

Main problem there is that TB is not purely a disease of the lungs. It can crop up in most organs and even bone.

[Marches Farmer]

Our neighbour turned out a batch of calves one summer, all home bred and raised in the same barn until then.  At the end of the summer one group tested clear and the other not. Those that didn't were in a field with a badger sett on the other side of the fence.  Doesn't take a genius to work that one out, or a DEFRA Minister .....

[pgkevet]

Several points:
Remember there are three divisions of tb.. avian, mammalian and human; mammalian being the more common to affet cattle and spread betwen cattle and to people.. but all can spread between types and to people.

If we accept that there is a direct correlation between cattle tb and tb in nearby badgers then there are some questions to be answered - most signifiantly how do badgers give cattle tb? It's easy enough to imagins dairy cows penned up together over winter or in the milking parlour coughing at each other but it;s hard to image badgers running around at cattle inspirational height or badgers sneaking up to grazign cows and coughing at them. On the other hand it's easy to imagine a cow coughing at a badger.

Yes, of course the affected badger wil be contaminating the ground but to my logic there is still somethign wrong with husbandry for the cattle to get infected that way.

I'm embarrassed for my nearest farmer neighbour when i see his dairy - some regular decent steam cleaning is desperately overdue. Frankly it needs rasiign to the ground and reisnstating with tile, epoxy grout and stainless steel.

When it comes to field management then a lot more comon sense with regards to banks, woodlands, wildlife corridors and doube fencing would make a lot of difference IMO

[Marches Farmer]

As I understand it cattle tend to have it in the lungs and breathe out the infection, whereas badgers excrete it from just about everywhere - faeces, breathe, saliva, urine, pus from fighting wounds .....    They only have to pee and then a cow comes along the next day and eats the grass and there's another reactor 60 days later.  I once enquired of the Moredun Institute how long it could remain infective on pasture and they said that in the right conditions it could be 6 months.  If you're in an area like ours, where there are many small valleys, hedges and woodlands and the badgers will happily travel long distances to a maize field, digging under sheep fencing on the way, there's really not that much you can do.  The conditions in a mucky cowshed may be ideal for coccidia, et al, but don't think that's going to have much effect one way or the other on whether a badger comes to call.   

[Penninehillbilly]

digging under sheep fencing on the way, there's really not that much you can do. 

I know they stick to their known paths etc, has anyone tried barbed wire fastened near the ground on the outside of cattle pasture? obviously couldn't put it in same fields as animals. Or surely electric fence has been tried?

[Thyme]

What's most frustrating to me is the vaccination question.  As I understand it, there is a vaccine for cattle that is around 60% effective, but it is illegal to use it in the EU (including the UK) because the skin test can't tell the difference between a vaccinated cow and an infected cow.  But the current skin test regime is so flawed that it seems highly likely that if the UK abandoned the skin test and replaced it with compulsory vaccination, the outcomes would  be better (fewer TB infected cows in the food chain) even if the 60% wasn't enough for full herd immunity.  But that's not politically possible.

[pgkevet]

The conditions in a mucky cowshed may be ideal for coccidia, et al, but don't think that's going to have much effect one way or the other on whether a badger comes to call.

I wasn't suggesting badgres in the cowshed.. but coughed mucus etc splattering about in an area of reduced ventilation

[Treud na Mara]

Genuine question here - anyone know how it is that Scotland seems to be TB free ?  I must say I'm with Thyme on the vaccination question. Considering the cost to the taxpayer of compensation surely that would potentially be much more cost effective ? 

[Marches Farmer]

I have written to my MP (he keeps a herd of Hereford cattle so should be on message) asking how far away a cattle vaccination actually is.  It seems to have been "ten years away" for the last fifteen. 

As for access to sheds some tests were carried out last year which showed badgers able to enter a field where the only access was the square space under the hinge side of metal gate, about 12cm!

[Thyme]

Here's a good recent scientific overview to send your MP.

[Buttermilk]

My understanding of tb in the human population is that it is being made worse by there being antibiotic resistant strains appearing, mainly from aisian countries.

[Marches Farmer]

Here's a good recent scientific overview to send your MP.

Lots of meaty stuff (quite literally!) in there!  On another aspect of the subject I know someone who runs a shoot on the Welsh border and finds that over 60% of the deer they cull have TB lesions in their lungs.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

Personally I think the badgers should be culled and then a vaccine program to the ones left.
Also people who caught tb from the milk it was because the cows had tb in the udder. You can eat cows with tb as long as the tb hasn't spread to the meat it is usually in the lungs. Also on the subject of tb and vaccines I imported some buffalo heifers last year and the amount of tests this blasted government conducted was stupid as they  had come into the country they had to be tested for everything and they passed every single test with flying colours. Am mad with the animal so called health people for giving them these tb injections I sware It has made one of my animals looney, she used to be a placid creature now I have to stop her from running everywhere when before milking.

[SallyintNorth]

wbf, if the animal health had not been super-careful and scrupulous about testing your imported animals then I for one, and just about every other cattle owner I know, would have been incandescent with rage.