Healthy animals are profitable animals and can pave the way to more lucrative markets, a welfare innovation-focused session at NFU Conference heard this morning.
NFU Animal Health and Welfare adviser Cat McLaughlin kicked things off with a presentation on the possible contribution to animal health that an RDPE Integrated animal health proposal could make.
She said that on World Animal Protection's global map of animal welfare, the UK was A-graded: "As farmers we are world class when it comes to protecting the health of animals."
The integrated animal health welfare proposal is still in the conceptual stage but we are trying to create a disease control scheme that would benefit individual farms, regional centres and national situations.
Nerys Wright from Eblex outlined AHDB's research work and the ways it is trying to inform farmers about innovations and best practice, ie its 'how to' videos on YouTube.
Duncan Sinclair, agriculture manager for Waitrose thanked all their farmers for helping them achieve a top-tier ranking in the global animal farm welfare audit, which is supported by Compassion in World Farming and World Animal Protection.
He said: "Healthy livestock are going to deliver better performance and that is what we are really all about."
Veterinary surgeon Donal Murphy, the technical executive of the National Office of Animal Health (NOAH), was on hand to explain about the organisation's new smart phone app.
The NOAH Datasheet Compendium is issued to vets and suitably qualified persons (SQP) as a hardback reference book for prescribing medicines and vaccines to animals. It helps ensure that the correct information is on hand so that people prescribe in a responsible manner.
This summer NOAH is aiming to launch an app so that an up-to-date version of this information is available in the field. The app will be searchable and will not require 3G or WiFi to operate and will include information such as contra indications and withdraw period references.
It is hoped that this app will eventually be able to collect data that may be required by Europe in the future.
Bluetongue
Defra's Chief Veterinary Officer Nigel Gibbens was in the audience and he answered questions about whether the Bluetongue vaccination programme a few years ago was a worthwhile exercise.
Mr Gibbens said: "BTV is alive and well in Southern Europe and in the coming season we may well be a BTV4 risk.
"There are two ways it may come across: the long way, via midges or the quick way by the transport of live animals. There is a BTV4 vaccine but it is not licensed in this country."
bTB
Mr Gibbens said that there was not a bTB vaccine available for cattle yet, but that Defra is looking into it, despite the fact that there are many hurdles.
"TB is a difficult disease to deal with, none of our tests are perfect and none of our vaccines are perfect," he added.
Defra estimates that 2020 will be the earliest a vaccine will be available, and that is assuming it gets a candidate vaccine that is worth pursuing.
He said the ideal for reducing bTB in badgers was the development of an oral vaccine, which would enable blanket vaccination of the badger population. This was how Europe had tackled rabies. But this approach would take a long time to yield results and would be expensive.
How do I watch live?
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