Keith Armitage, Deerpark, Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary

DEAR SIR: I’ve been going through a tough few months on the farm lately. It all started last August when a cow sent for slaughter showed up with TB in the post-mortem, then another one in September. So out of six cows sent for slaughter, two showed up with TB.

We needed to do a full herd test, I wanted to do it before the winter feeding started, but Department of Agriculture rules wouldn’t allow this until 60 days after the last reactor had been removed from the farm. We did a test in November and 18 cattle showed up with TB. I was a bit surprised, I thought maybe we’d have five or six reactors.

I couldn’t understand where it was coming from. We all know that TB can spread from wildlife to cattle, but there are no deer in this area. There is some badger activity, but none of the sets were active.

I have never bought in female cattle and the only males I bought in since our last TB episode in 2006 were two stock bulls and they passed the test in November. The cattle were valued by an independent valuer who had been given guidelines by the Department. Eighteen cattle, mostly in-calf cows, went for slaughter at a local meat plant.

I went to see them being killed, but when I tried to ask questions about whether all the cows were in-calf or if any of them had lesions, I was told: ‘Your local DVO will tell you anything you need to know’. Then I got told where to stand by an over-bearing official and I watched as my next crop of calves disappeared down a chute. I got a cheque for the cattle about two days later, it was about one-third the value put on them by the independent valuation.

The balance came from the Department about a month later when all the necessary paperwork, including a tax clearance cert, had been forwarded on to the local DVO. Back then the wife thought this was brilliant – we’d have money for Christmas, a few bills, pay bank arrears, etc. But what about next Christmas and the one after that?

Later we found out 13 out of the 18 cattle showed up with lesions. The vet from the Department suggested that we should do a blood test for TB at the next herd test. OK, I said, in my ignorance, as I wanted to get to the bottom of this.

The vet went on to explain that the blood test is only about 85%, perhaps 92%, accurate, it does throw up a few false positives. I agreed to go ahead with the blood test on all animals over 12-months-old at the next test.

Roll on February, we had to wait 60 days after the last reactor was removed from the herd. By this time a lot of the cows were heavy in-calf. Our own vet did the skin test,and the Department vet took blood samples from all the cows, stock bulls and heifers over 12 months – around 79 in total.

Three days later we had the results of the blood test, out of the 79 tested, 24 had failed, including one of my stock bulls. I was sort of in a semi-automatic daze as we did the skin test. I remember the Department vet asking me: ‘Do you love this cow’? What he meant was she was borderline on the blood test and her skin test was clear, she was probably a false positive on the blood test.

I was going to say something smart like: ‘I love all my cows’, but I bit my tongue and bravely/stupidly said something like: ‘Let her off (for slaughter)’. Remember I still wanted to eliminate this disease from my farm as quickly as possible. So the final tally that day: 36 more cattle gone.

The worrying part was one weanling bull was gone too, this group of cattle were all clear in the previous test. So a week went by, I sorted out all the reactors from the rest of the herd.

The independent valuer came again. By this time cattle prices in the mart had risen considerably since the last test, but the valuations didn’t reflect this, we eventually thrashed it out and I agreed to the valuations.

Three weeks after the test, 35 out of the 36 reactors went off to the same local meat plant. One cow didn’t go because she was calving that morning. She went a week later.

Needless to say, I didn’t go to the meat plant that day to see my future sliding down a chute. However, I did go to another meat plant later that week with three bulls for slaughter. Strangely enough, one of these showed up with lesions, which later showed up as being TB positive after being cultured.

Now this bull passed a test in November, passed a test in February and yet still had TB bad enough to show up with lesions. I am not really looking forward to my next TB test in early May.

So calving of my remaining 17 cows continues, slowly. I have bought another Aberdeen Angus bull. There are still about 30 heifers that will be fit for service this year; all going well next year might be better.

The department vet wants to do the ELIZA test at the next herd test, I think I have no option but to do it, after all, I want to get to the bottom of this.