Archived News

7th August 2008

A letter has arrived from DEFRA informing us that 32 of our cattle need to be tested for Bovine Tuberculosis because ‘The listed cattle have been traced from a farm on which bovine TB has been confirmed’.

We phoned the dealer who sources our calves to ask what news he had of this.  One cow was bought from a farm sale in the west country earlier this year and this has tested positive as a reactor, it doesn’t mean that it definitely has TB, because the Gamma Interferon test is known to show false positives.  No other cattle have shown positive on the Hampshire farm and one would expect more animals to have contracted TB from the cow if it were actually TB positive.

The animal will be culled as a precaution and then further tests will confirm whether or not the cow actually had TB.

DEFRA now have to trace all livestock that have left the Hampshire farm and the west country farm. We have to confirm whether the calves are still on our farm and arrange for these to be tested. 

Laurence was planning to start combining today until the heavens opened just now and drenched everything including the oats.  Plan B is to do some fencing on the pig field.