The number of empty BVD tissue sample tags continues to fall sharply. By this week, the number reported by testing laboratories so far this year was 18,795 or 0.93% of all tags. By the same date in 2018, the number was 27,083 and the rate 1.35%. So the empty rate has fallen 30% so far this year.

Empty tags are those that turn out to be either empty or unusable in some other way when opened at a testing laboratory. The number of empties has varied from year to year without any clear explanation as to why.

The number declined each year after the start of tissue testing in 2013 but then jumped in 2017 and peaked last year at over 31,000. Empties now appear to be on a downward trend again.

In the coming weeks, cattle farmers will begin ordering tags for 2020 calves. Meanwhile, as of the end of July, there were 37 persistently infected (PI) calves with bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD).