Animal welfare demands call for better hygiene in industry

The strategy, published jointly by Defra, the Scottish Executive and Welsh Assembly, also made it clear that farmers, in one way or another, will have to pay a much bigger share of the cost of any future disease outbreak.

Based on a series of meetings with stakeholders which included vets and farmers the proposed strategy said that "the animal health and welfare picture in Great Britain leaves much to be desired."

Much of the reason for that is beef and sheep farmers not taking bio-security and farm hygiene seriously, unlike most serious pig and poultry farmers.

Examples given were the rampant spread of TB in cattle in some areas, farmers’ reluctance to use common sense and available records when buying breeding animals from other areas, 80 per cent of pig herds with a wasting disease in piglets, national lamb mortality of 15 per cent and more than 90 per cent of sheep flocks having a problem with lameness.

It didn’t even mention sheep scab, which is now endemic in Britain - a fact that should be an affront to any industry which calls itself humane and efficient.

The outline strategy could alter slightly after consultation in the next few months, but will be in place by next spring, with its overriding message that keeping livestock is a privilege not a right.

There is also a simpler argument, that bad animal husbandry loses money. A senior veterinary official with the Executive said:

"Farmers must involve vets more in preventive planning. Diseases cost money. Johnes can cost 100 a cow in a herd, bovine viral diarrhoea 200 a cow."

The lesson can be learned the hard way. Vets working in the south-west of Scotland have reported a drop in animal infections, such as cattle pneumonia, on some farms which were culled during the foot-and-mouth epidemic then thoroughly disinfected.

"Why?" asked the same senior state vet rhetorically."Because for the first time in years buildings had been thoroughly cleaned and bio-security taken seriously."

Charles Milne, who succeeded Leslie Gardener as Scotland’s chief vet earlier this year, said that there was a lack of two-way communication between beef and sheep farmers and vets.

He said: "Pig and poultry men work well with vets on disease prevention. Beef and sheep men go for the fire brigade treatment. They have not taken up the option of preventive work."

That had to change, a theme running through the strategy outline and emphasised by Peter Jinman, president of the British Veterinary Association.

But his concern is that unless change comes soon and farmers invest more in veterinary service, especially forward planning, there will be too few vets to cope.

The strategy outline noted that average spending by livestock units fell 10 per cent during the financially-difficult years between 1996 and 2001. At the same time the proportion of time spent by veterinary practices rose from 66 per cent to more than 73 per cent.

There are 2,167 "main" veterinary practices in Britain, of which barely one third now deal with cattle, sheep goats or pigs.

Jinman and the BVA say, rightly, that it would be difficult to have an effective animal health and welfare strategy that did not involve "a significant input from private veterinary practice."

But, as a leader in the Veterinary Record noted recently, "it is becoming harder to achieve a veterinary presence on farms." From the same set of statistics used in the outline strategy, the Record said that the time spent on cattle work by vets had fallen from 14 per cent to 7.5 per cent in five years and time spent on sheep fell from four per cent to 1.3 per cent.

Vets are also embroiled in debate about prescription-only medicines and charges. Jinman said: "We are vets, but we are also businessmen."

As farmers have cut costs, vets as well as animals have been among the sufferers. As fewer farmers and stockmen/women look after more animals, there is a reminder of the approach John Cherrington recorded when he went to New Zealand as a young man in the 1930s.

Asked to slaughter a sick cow, he asked why the farmer did not send for the vet. The farmer said: "How much is that cow worth?"

"About 3," said Cherrington.

"And how much will the vet charge to come out?"

"About 3," said Cherrington.

"Then cut her ****** throat," said his employer.

It would be good to think we have moved on. Vets would like to think so, even at today’s prices.

Most farmers urged to take animal health and welfare and bio-security seriously for profitable farming would like to think so. The government and Scottish Executive insist that we have to.