Farmer Writes: planning is vital when you get hit with a bombshell

Last spring I had no intension of holding on to any calf that wasn’t a Friesian heifer for longer than three weeks. Then I got called for a contiguous herd TB test. It was scheduled for mid-March and of course I couldn’t sell anything until it was completed.

This year

After last year’s crypto problems, this year was a breeze. I had focused on having the calf house well washed and disinfected, and on getting three litres of colostrum into every calf. The weather was a big help too, with very little fog to stop the airflow.

Everything was spotless in the test, but by the time paperwork was being sorted I had decided to hold the calves and sell as weanlings in August instead.

The bombshell

Standard practice for contiguous testing is a second test four months later. Roll on July and I’m hit with a bombshell. Three TB reactors, a spring-calved milking cow at home and two dry autumn calvers on an outside block. In fairness, the Department of Agriculture staff were very helpful and the three were valued and collected within three weeks. The compensation certainly won’t make me rich as none of them would be considered top of their breed.

Plan C

Plan C has now been initiated; I am a beef finisher again. Selling off cull cows and infertile heifers to a neighbour wasn’t an option with the disease restriction.

Grass paddocks could get scarce quickly in the autumn, with the extra stock, so I dried the lower yielding culls and housed them.

They are getting straw and building up to adlib coarse ration of mostly maize and rolled barley. They need to be pushed as the shed will be needed again in November.

I will probably make it up as a TMR diet once the diet feeder starts mixing dry cow TMR in September, buckets will do fine for now.

Next stages

The next stages of the TB saga are to wait for the culture tests taken at slaughter and to test the whole herd again in 60 days from when the reactors left.

I am hearing of similar situations to mine in the southwest being negative in the factory.

If everything goes perfectly I may be clear in December, but I am preparing for being restricted till spring. Of course if there’s more reactors found in the next test then plans T or S may have to be made.

It is an expensive headache in a year that was going so well.

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