Time to Think

The Unthinkable

Morning all from Laughing Oak,

Stopped Saturday morning at a friend's place to see his first half-Devon calf – lovely little fellow, sturdy and tough even though he was only a few hours old. Sunday saw him up and about, working on incorporating the extra boost of the injectable selenium he'd been given that morning, interested and following the herd around, still looking cute (and solid and square to boot !). It'll be fun to watch him grow.

As the date of the incubation period for potential new cases of foot and mouth disease to emerge passes (August 20th) the dust is starting to settle in the wake of the most recent foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in the UK. Some of the dust has settled. But there'll probably be some more down the road as the rest of the tale gets told, I suspect.

Very early in the investigation it became obvious that the outbreak traced back to a vaccine strain of organism – a strain used at a nearby site which housed a laboratory (Institute for Animal Health – a government funded facility responsible for analyzing FMD samples) and a vaccine manufacturing facility (Merial Animal Health). The manner in which the organism "escaped" those facilities is still unclear. Initial proposals included wind-borne spread, effluent from the facilities and either deliberate or accidental fomite transmission. The first two possibilities have been discounted, leaving some means of fomite transmission as the likely source of the outbreak.

The initial outbreak was on a small beef farm, which had four parcels of land, all owned by one farmer. Some of these animals had clinical signs of the disease, some did not, and some tested positive for exposure but did not have symptoms. All in all, 64 four head of cattle from those holdings were culled along with an additional 33 from the farm of a neighbor.

Another farm, located between the original outbreak and the laboratory, culled 102 head of cattle.

At a third farm, 362 animals were culled, of which 338 were hogs. All were subsequently discovered to be negative for FMD exposure or disease.

[The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has said Hunts Hill Farm inside the surveillance zone, where 362 cows, sheep, pigs, and goats were destroyed as a precautionary measure, did not have the disease. Farmer John Emerson voiced his frustration after it was confirmed the slaughtered animals were not infected: "When we first heard the herds next door to ours were infected we thought it was inevitable ours would get it too. But knowing now that my animals were never infected makes it worse."

[The news that his pigs never had the disease left him with "mixed feelings." There was sadness for his animals and concern for the future of the farm but at the same time he recognized the disease had to be controlled.

Why am I counting??

Certainly there are some who would feel that the lives of six hundred or so animals is a piddling price to pay for halting this outbreak. Maybe so but….

I was peripherally involved in the 2001 FMD outbreak in the UK, consulting with colleagues, public health officials and other members of the farming community about the potential for using homeopathic remedies in the face of that outbreak. The 2001 outbreak resulted in the butchering of thousands of head of stock, sending farmers (and others) reeling,.

It broke my heart. Thousands of head of stock killed at a huge cost – not just the cost of the lives taken, not solely a monetary cost - but also a huge cost to the farmers and their families who tried to re-establish their farms.

And what about the genetic potential lost? What about the numbers of rare and endangered species lost?

From where I stand it is incumbent upon us to consider what the implications to our farms and communities of such an outbreak on the stock entrusted to our care might be – whether it be FMD or some other contagion (whether naturally or intentionally delivered).

Think about the implications of having to slaughter all of the stock on your farm because of an exposure to one of these contagious diseases, a culling that might well be ordered whether or not your animals actually show clinical signs of disease or test positive for exposure to the disease. And a culling that doesn't care about the economic, genetic, sentimental or historical value of the stock.

Where would such a scenario leave you and your farm?

Where would it leave the Devon breed?

Where would it leave the last few offspring of say, Potheridge President? (Likely culled and dead, if they were in the heart of the outbreak!)

While I don't want to run around hollering about the sky falling, this recent outbreak got me thinking about these sorts of things again. I wonder whether farmers, certainly more specifically members of our Association, really do have some basic and practical bio-security measures in place on and between their farms. That wonder is fueled not only out of my concern for the overall welfare of the stock but for the long-term success and function of the individual farms.

Sure, all stock is valuable but there is also that "extra" value when one is dealing with less common breeds and breeds for which we are trying to grow the numbers from a limited pool.

Many of these bio-security measures are simple for the most part: knowing who comes and goes from your farms, knowing what you may be lugging to other places, basic hygiene and animal contact management and the recognition that these basics along with good manure management will do much to reduce general contamination (even though FMD is not a fecal/oral disease, many of the same basics apply), the use of individual gloves and needles,…

It seems to me that there are also other considerations:

Where did you travel today?

How many farms were you on?

How much stock did you see, how much of it belonged to you – and in which order did you see them?

How many farmers - and their boots and truck tires - shared the dirt on which you walked in your barns and pastures, at the feed mill, the local fair, the last pasture walk, the veterinary clinic, the corner store where you just ran in between harvesting chores to pick up some ice cream?
What about the family who stopped at your place to buy meat on their weekly tour of local farmers who supply them with meat, milk and produce ? Or the local hunters and hikers who might traverse your property ? Or the folks who rent one of the farm-houses on your property ?

Think about how our farms are set up – and the implications of possibly lugging "stuff" (boots, coveralls, stock, supplies, equipment, chutes, scales, halters and ropes, clippers, tanks,….. as well as the actual bacteria or virus or parasite or??) from one farm to the next.

Think about the checks and balances you have that might contain such a contamination were it to occur on your farm.

Think about the manner in which we are transporting stock, running up to this farm for a visit whilst on the way to trailer a load of cattle back home from a yet another farm,…. Think about the last time your trailer was washed or the bedding changed.

We need to ask some difficult questions about whether or not we are positioned in a manner that will foster both individual farm security as well as the security and integrity of the Devon breed. We need to ensure that we are proactive in the use of these measures, not solely for the sake of the farm and the stock, but so we retain that remote possibility that we have some recourse in the event of mandatory government directed culling programms. If our farms have clear biosecurity measures in place, measures that are well thought out, are documented and are in daily use, the overall health of the farm is improved – we have some measure to handle the possibility of such an outbreak.

With luck and blessings, your farm's level of preparedness will be tested on something simple, like a "little outbreak" of the latest respiratory disease between herds, not on a large scale government mandated quarantine and cull response such as that of an FMD outbreak.

Take care,
Susan Beal