New lock-up for 8,000 extra contiguous herds

About 8,000 extra cattle herds will be temporarily restricted this year, following the Department of Agriculture decision to more strictly control movement from farms alongside herds with serious TB outbreaks.

The Department is also restricting movement of inconclusive reactor animals until they are eventually moved for slaughter.

IFA Animal Health Project Team Chairman John Waters has said the new TB eradication measures are unnecessary, costly and trade-prohibitive, and not required under EU regulation.

Until the scheduled risk-based contiguous herd test is carried out, animals in herds neighbouring serious outbreaks can be moved only direct to slaughter — unless they had been tested within the previous four months. The contiguous herd test can be carried out within days, say Department officials, if a farmer wishes to sell animals on the open market. Previously, farmers could sell before a contiguous test; now the test is needed before selling. According to officials, the new restriction is necessary because a purchased animal is three to four times more likely to be a reactor if it comes from a contiguous herd.

Department data shows that an inconclusive animal is 10 times more likely to be a reactor in the future than any other animal which was not inconclusive, even in the same herd.

Locking up of contiguous herds will be determined by factors such as the extent of the neighbouring infection — it will require identification of at least two standard reactors.

If the herd was already tested earlier in the year, the department will pay for subsequent contiguous tests.

In some cases, all farms adjoining a fragmented farm of many different parcels could be restricted.

Controlling movement of high risk animals, and animals from high risk herds, is part of the push to build on last year’s achievement of the lowest number of reactors since eradication started in the 1950s.

Herd incidence of TB has fallen from 7% in 2001 to 4.1% last year. This means nearly 4,500 fewer herds were restricted compared to 10 years ago.

In the same period, the number of reactors per year has declined from 33,702, to 18,531.

As a result, eradication expenditure has fallen from €52 million in 2008 to less than €40m last year.