NeilOughton1:

Jacobus, according to a Dutch friend of mine that is in the thick of it, you really don't want it when the ewes are in lamb. Most of them won't be by the end of it! At least if they get it near weaning, you might manage to sell a few next year.

Neil, whilst I appreciate it isn't a good time to ask your Dutch friend about this, but could he/she give us any indication of how the ewes were treated ie did they use Pen/Strep or was tetracycline better.  I know we will only be trying to suppress secondary infection at best but any specific tips on decreasing mortality might help, rather than us all having to reinvent the wheel again.

the aged clun, I copy the following from his last email......

Neil,

Many thanks for that.  Stunned silence must be an understatement!

What I find really incredible - apart from the obvious lack of urgency on the vaccine front - is that this has been going on in our near neighbours for eighteen months without most farmers here being remotely aware of the devastation it can cause or apparently how little can be done in truly practical terms to help suffering stock. 

Isabel, if you're reading this, tell your editor that you need a cross channel break, get the stories at the heart of the diseased area and let's get as much pubicity out there as possible.  Farmers need to know the truth to jerk them out of ignorance and the public and politicians need to know the truth to jerk them fram apathy.

Frank

I am totally behind you on this one, if you need anything signed (petitions or anything) please let me know. I know we don't have anywhere near the amount of sheep you do, but it affects us all no matter how many we have. I am sure we have all had BT be it a mild case in the last weeks as well, unexplained deaths that make you scratch your head. Good luck with blood testing today, be interested to hear about the cattle as we have some not very far away from you !! Don't know what my Dad would have been saying about all this if he was still here, enough to make him pack up I would have thought.

Absolutely! This is potentially worse than FMD, but has already gone from news headlines.

neil

we are also stunned..  but will not be silent

what breed were these sheep please?

Isabel,      I am concerned that if this all BT info still on the fmd thread then it is being missed by those searching for more BT info, is there anyway please you can duplicate/rectify this?

many thanks

All

I have already started a new thread BLUETONGUE NOW ENDEMIC!

Regards

Frank

Good luck to you all down in Kent, I was born there and feel close to you all.

I now live in Derbyshire and feel its only a matter of time before we get it here.

We really do need to get this on the telly more. People havent a clue as we didnt until a few weeks ago. How can all this be happening just over the water while our government and defra have been sitting here doing nothing. I read that the midge eggs are carried in horse dung which makes horses carriers in my book therefore they should be on a standstill within their areas too but i guess that may upset the wrong people.

It really isnt good enough and WE must do something because no one else will.

Sorry to hear the news, Frank, but thanks for posting. This is really helpful information.

It appears that the symptoms of BT are not easily recognised. Ewes may be "off colour" for a couple of days and then recover whereas lambs may die without showing any of the obvious signs. The symptoms of diseases like Orf in some ways are similar to BT. Livestock farmers do not call out the Vet every time an animal is sick you do the best you can for it and hope it gets better. BT is a notifiable disease but if the symptoms are not that clear how do we know if we have the diiease. To be on the safe side you should call Defra every time you think you may have a problem even it it turns out not to be BT. However given that it may well be that the desease is more widespread than the official records show, could Defra really cope if every one called them for every suspect case of BT? I suspect not. 

If god forbid I did get BT in my flock and I notify Defra what are they going to do? It would appear the answer is nothing other than just record it in their notebooks. So that raises the question why call Defra in the first place? Yes I know because I am suppose to but I am sure a lot of farmers are just not going to contact Defra. There is no incentive and in fact there is a real disincentive if you have to get all your sheep in and penned up just so that a man from Defra can inspect them. Then there is the question of what do you do with any dead animals. If Defra know you have BT on your farm there may well be some losses and they would expect your records to show that they have been collected through the fallen livestock scheme. As Frank says the financial loss of the animal is more than enough to bear but to then have to pay for that animal to be taken away. I am sure that as a result of BT there will be many lambs that die that will be "taken by the foxes" or a few ewes that die will just dissappear overnight.  The incentive to notify Defra must surely be that in return for letting them know you have BT that there is a free collection service for dead animals. 

Shropshire lad,

I totally agree with your last point - if there is no incentive to report the symptoms there will be a lot of people who don't bother.  DEFRA are putting extra money into NFSCo to give free collection in the FMD zone - presumably on the basis that there may be a lot of animals culled by farmers unable to move them to winter grazing.  It should be an easy matter to notify RPA of the NFS membership numbers of all holdings with Bluetongue confirmed.

As you say there does seem to be a great variety of symptoms being presented, with not a lot of commonality.  In fact, from what I have read, the only common factor seems to be the sort of flu-like fever and the appearance of an animal which is under the weather.  This year we have had lambs with orf, and we have had lambs with photo-sensitisation.  We have had both diseases on the farm before, and I am confident of my diagnosis (although with the latter, if it had happened after BTV was reported in the country I would have been less confident, but with the swelling visibly reduced after 24 hours out of the sun and gone in a few days I think it was pretty well indicative).  In neither case was there any sign that the lambs felt really unwell eg. no lack of appetite, no listlessness etc.. 

So at my present level of knowledge, it would seem that if an animal's behaviour doesn't give the appearance of its being unwell, I wouldn't be concerned enough to call Animal Health.  But am I right?  I don't know - but I do know that I feel that I do not have enough information.  It's one thing to read the relevant publications and look at the illustrations, but it seems that most of these illustrate the most extreme of the symptoms.  Would it be useful for a video of the range of symptoms and their severity to be available to download from DEFRA?

As Shropshire lad says, it is very much in DEFRA's interest to minimise the number of false alarm cases reported.

The deputy chief vet is giving an update on the bluetongue situation this afternoon. We'll keep you posted with any developments.