TB test success – so what next?

Tuesday 4 April was a significant date on this farm. We had a clear TB test at the end of January, so another clear test in April would put us completely clear.

The implications of going clear are endless. We would be able to start making inroads into selling some of the calves and cattle we have accumulated since last July. That, in turn, would help us make inroads into our cash flow issues – selling beef calves is an important part of our income.

If the test is a failure, and we are still unable to sell anything, then we have to make immediate plans of how best to keep these cattle, how much grazing they will need and, if we turn them out to grass, will that mean we are short of silage for the cows next winter?

The permutations of what to do are also endless, and one of the troubles with TB is you have no idea of what the outcome of a test will be. Hunches are of no value – no likelihood exists of second guesses being of any value, either – you simply do not have a clue. It is a very clear case of, in the words of Doris Day, “whatever will be, will be”. Younger people will just shrug their shoulders and say “whatever”.

Balancing act

So, the day dawns. I am not involved in the actual testing anymore, with the cattle handling. I only get to international rugby matches with the help of a walking stick and a sympathetic veterinary arm. However, I have got tractor driving to do; I can still do that. I set off in my truck to the field where I have left the tractor overnight, when cattle are mostly still housed at the end of winter.

We have TB testing to do at three sites. Halfway into my short journey, I meet the testing gang heading back home. I don’t think you should necessarily attribute demeanour to a 12-year-old, four-wheel drive truck, but I did. I met them on a B road. It is the sort of windy road you can do 50mph on, but 40mph is more comfortable. They were doing about 45mph – it was a positive speed; it told me we had passed. I assumed a failure would have manifested itself in a more “funereal 30mph”; an abject limping home after another setback.

It is three or four hours before I see anyone to talk to. “We passed,“ they said. “I know,” I said, which leaves them completely bemused.

Gossip spreads like wildfire around here and TB results fall into the category of “gossip”. By 7pm, a neighbour is in the yard (with his chequebook) looking to buy 10 six-month-old cattle. This catches us on the hop; we have not been to a livestock market since July and we are not sure how to value things.

It is a balancing act. We need the money, we need to move the cattle, we need to keep him interested and we need to find out what they are worth. So, we contrive to keep him warm for a couple of days. We said we are still waiting for paperwork to come through, which is half true, which is good for us.

Of particular interest to local cattle buyers is a very fine, white “blue” cross steer that escapes every day through feed barriers designed for cows and wanders our yard at will. Never going too far, so as not to be a problem, grazing our lawn, should it so choose, and to all intents is a free spirit.

We should be able to sell two trailer-loads of calves over the next week, so with the 10 older cattle we should return slowly to some normality. This will, as I described earlier, provide a welcome respite to an issue of serious overcrowding.

Cost of calves

What of the future? I have absolutely no confidence we will pass our next test. A lot of TB is still around here.

We will be glad of this respite and take full advantage of it, but we will still expect the worst at future tests. If cull areas are extended in the future, I fully expect this area to be included. At the disastrous test we had in November, when 14 cattle went, my son described some of the lumps on those that reacted as being so big, they looked as if someone had put a bottle of calcium under their skin. Yet, at this recent test, there was hardly a pimple to be seen. There’s no rhyme or reason to that.

I was talking to a farmer the other day, who lives not very far from here and has been tied up with TB for seven years without a break. The problem shows no sign of diminishing; 22 cattle reacted at his last test. If he’s been closed down for seven years, just how many other farms are in the same boat? He’s not brought an animal on to his farm in those seven years and he doesn’t have animal-to-animal contact with any neighbours. Where has all that come from?

The implications of a long-term breakdown are immense. Ours has been just seven or eight months and has been a struggle. We’ve struggled to keep all the calves that have been born. They could be sold at TB markets, but at those, the younger the cattle, the lower the demand. There is a demand for bigger store cattle that only need six months or so to finish them, but bitter experience has taught me the value of calves barely covers the cost of the ear tag and the milk they drink, and the option of killing calves at birth becomes a very real one. We do not become farmers to kill healthy animals before their time, but a prolonged TB shutdown makes it inevitable and, like it or not, there is bound to be an emotional and traumatic cost to that.

The solution lies with politicians, and politicians have plenty of other issues to address over the next two years. I am not hopeful.