About 18 months ago I killed some cattle in the factory and the next day I received the dreaded phone call from the veterinary office to say that one of the animals had TB-like lesions. As a result, the department was putting movement restrictions on my herd, preventing me from selling in the live market.

In a few weeks they phoned again to confirm that it was TB and, as a result, I would have to do some TB tests.

During that conversation, I questioned as to how this animal could have been infected with TB, given it was a young bull that had been in the house for the last two clear TB tests. They told me that it was probably as a result of wildlife coming into the shed during the night.

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I was not convinced, so I set up night cameras around the house to see what was coming and going.

I kept the cameras up for three weeks and nothing came in at all. So, I was no further forward.

I did two TB tests 60 days apart and both were clear. Then I was required to wash and disinfect the shed, even though nothing had gone down in the two tests and it was full all the time.

I got opened, but I had to do a check test at six and 12 months – both these tests were clear.

Baffled

But just before the last test I got another dreaded phone call after killing cattle in the factory, with the DAERA official reporting that an animal had shown TB-like lesions. Again, I am completely baffled. It has since been confirmed as TB.

To be honest, I just don’t believe what is being said. No-one can explain to me how this one animal has TB and everything else in the herd is clear.

If the animal had a lump at a skin test, then that would be fair enough, but we farmers have to accept everything we are told on the back of what a DAERA inspector sees in a fast-moving factory environment and a subsequent test in a lab. They may be right, but I have absolutely no faith in the overall process.

Nonsense

Just this week I got the letter telling me to cleanse and disinfect the pen that the animal was in. This is a nonsense. The rest of the cattle in the pen have been TB tested and are clear.

Am I supposed to take these cattle out of the pen and clean and disinfect it, before putting the animals back in?

Some of the rules around TB are laughable (but profoundly serious). The sad thing is that these silly rules are not having any impact on the incidence of TB – after 60 years of testing, we are still no further forward.

In my own case, it all means I am back in the TB merry-go-round. I am closed from selling cattle in the mart even though there has been no TB found in my animals at herd tests. To get clear, I am going to have to complete at least two more herd tests and hope that nothing else has TB like lesions in the factory.

I am not alone in this as there are loads of farmers who have the same problems with these TB-like lesions being found at slaughter.

Solution

There is a lot of talk about wildlife intervention and there are TB hot spots that could benefit from this, but it would not help my situation.

Instead, in my opinion, the solution to TB is actually so simple and it is staring the authorities in the face, but no-one seems to want to grasp the nettle – we have a TB test that is so inaccurate it is never going to help eradicate the disease.

To be still using the same test after 60 years of failure is never going to make any sense to me.

It is missing TB reactors and giving a positive reaction to animals that are negative.

I think that if there was a real desire to eradicate TB then a more accurate test would have been found.

I am fed up with TB and so are a lot of other farmers – we can only beg scientists to find a more accurate TB test.