|
June Newsletter |
|
More on Horse Passports This week apparently the final
regulations concerning Horse Passports were laid before Parliament. The
regulations make it clear that owners must apply for a passport before 30th
June of this year. The seventy or so organizations that are issuing passports
are still dealing with a large number of forms and they can take a month or
more to process. The Rural Affairs Minister has however sort of put off the
deadline for having the documents yet again. The new regulations are not
going to be enforced until March 2005. From that date it will be illegal not
to present a passport when a horse moves premises, enters competitions, is
used for breeding, is sold or presented for slaughter. It is still not clear
exactly how the new regulations will be policed or what measures if any will
be taken against owners of horses that do not have the correct documents. It
is anticipated that new foals will need a passport before the end of the year
in which they were born. Fallen Stock Scheme At least they are still talking
about definite dates for the horse passports. There has also been further
news about the fallen Stock Scheme this month. The payments system has been
modified and there are specific details now as to how the scheme will work.
As yet there is no definite starting date, just a vague statement that the
intention is that the new scheme will start in the autumn. They have now done
away with the idea of different sized farms paying different fees. The new
idea is that you will all have to pay a registration fee of twenty five
pounds to cover the cost of administration. Once you have joined you will be
sent a list of the collectors that operate in our area with a further list of
the prices that they will charge. Once you have chosen who you want to
collect from your farm you will be charged by monthly direct debit for any
animals that you send. The plan is that the collectors will be expected to
collect fallen stock within forty eight hours, but there does not seem to be
quite so much emphasis on storing them in a secure building at the road side
as was originally intended. I think everybody is thoroughly fed up will all
of the delays and amendments. It would be far better now to get the scheme up
and running and make any modifications at a later date if there were any
problems. Current Casualties Now you would think this should
be a good and easy time for the stock on most farms, surprisingly it seems to
be a time when there are still a large number of fallen and casualty animals.
The sort of things that we see are suspect blackleg, staggers, milk fever,
cows with low phosphorus levels at calving that fail to respond to milk fever
treatments and suffer muscle damage, bulling cows that slip on greasy yards
and cows with bloat. Some chronically
lame cows cope reasonably well in the winter but are now finding it
increasingly difficult to keep up with the rest of the herd. Some times it is
not at all clear exactly what the problem has been. It would be interesting
if some body could get some funding and investigate exactly which diseases
and conditions are responsible for unexpected livestock losses on farms. Bloat and Clover Most things are good in
moderation, but it is all too easy to have too much of a good thing. Clover
is good because of the way bacteria in its roots are able to capture nitrogen
from the air and release it into the soil encouraging plant growth. The
trouble is cattle and sheep can only cope with so much clover, if it starts
to take over the gas bubbles that form in the rumen get trapped in a foam and cannot be released. On some farms that
encourage clover bloat can be a serious problem. Seeds from the plants
readily pass through the animal that eats them and are ready to germinate as
soon as they are passed so the clover spreads to more and more fields on the
farm. Sometimes it is possible to limit access to the pasture by strip
grazing or moving the cows onto a bare pasture after a short period. The
problem is that it is usually the greedy cows that get bloat and they are
able to over eat in just an hour or so which may not be sufficient time for
the slower cows to get to the field and take what they need. Treating Bloat Cooking oil works well if you
realize what is happening and can drench the cow before she gets too tight
and the rumen stops working. As the pressure builds up affected animals find
it more and more difficult to breathe and it is difficult to retrieve the
situation as they cannot cope with even the slightest stress. Animals with
frothy bloat will not deflate if you are able to pass a stomach tube as there
are lots of little bubbles and no gas cap to release. Again little is able to
escape from a cannula directly into the rumen
unless you can get the animal to take some cooking oil or birp
first so that a gas cap can form over the liquid in the rumen and be tapped
off. The risk from bloat seems to diminish as the summer progresses. The
trick is to have access to pastures in the late spring and early summer that
are not too badly affected by clover so that you can keep the cattle safe. Drug Supplies Drug companies keep developing
new drugs introduce them to us in a blaze of publicity and then after five or
six years they will disappear again as something better takes their place.
Often it seems their timing is none too good. Last year a new dry cow product
was launched in the summer when it was none too clear if it would be
effective against summer mastitis. This year the same company has just
launched its new pneumonia antibiotic at a time when visits to calves with
pneumonia are few and far between. While all of this has been going on one of
their milking cow tubes that we rely on to treat cows with chronic mastitis
has gone out of stock. Sometime I think it would be better if they invested
more money in securing the supply of the drugs that they already have rather
than developing new products that we do not need. Dangers of Micotil New warning
are to be printed on the packaging of Micotil
following the accidental deaths of two farmers in the
|