Farmers in Northern Ireland (NI) with cattle which were born after 1 March 2016 and are untested for Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) could face prosecution.

On Monday, DAERA announced that farmers with “significant numbers of untested animals” that were born after the compulsory phase of BVD eradication programme began will be contacted and given to 30 days to complete tests.

“Failure to do so may result in prosecution,” the statement from DAERA reads.

Legislation

Current legislation in NI requires all cattle born after 1 March 2016 to be tested for BVD.

Only animals with a negative BVD status are permitted to be moved through a mart or on to another farm.

“The Department has a responsibility to ensure the legislation is adhered to and we will seek to enforce this through the courts if necessary,” said DAERA chief vet Robert Huey.

In February, Animal Health and Welfare NI published figures which showed that there were 15,000 cattle aged over 35 days that were born during the compulsory phase of the BVD eradication programme but have an unknown BVD status.

Delayed tissue tag testing

The cattle were in approximately 3,300 herds with the most common reasons for unknown BVD statuses being delayed tissue tag testing or submission of an empty sample for testing.

“It is disappointing that a small number of herd keepers continue to keep untested animals. Some of these are likely to be persistently infected with BVD virus, so they are a disease risk, both to the current herd and to neighbouring herds,” Robert Huey said on Monday.

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