𝐓𝐁 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 – 𝐄𝐦𝐦𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐝!

We're very excited that Emma Williams has now joined Towan and a lot of you will already know her.

She's been TB testing cattle in West Cornwall for seven years. Anyone who has had her stood next to their crush before will know that she's efficient, helpful with the stock and on the ball with the paperwork.

What's changed for Emma is that she is taking the lead on TB admin as well. This is going to make the process of booking in a test as simple as possible for everyone involved and having three people who can test which will help us manage the diary better.

Bringing someone with Emma's experience and reputation on board isn't something we take lightly and it's really a reflection of how much the farm side of Towan has grown over the past 6 months. It has also increased the capacity for us to register new farms and still offer the high level of service that we promised from the start. We’ve been assisting a few people to move their testing across in the last few weeks and it can be done with a single phone call or email.

𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞

BTV-3 is now confirmed on 𝟏,𝟖𝟑𝟐 premises across Great Britain (1,575 in England, 224 in Wales, 33 in Scotland) as of the 24th September. A further 𝟏,𝟐𝟒𝟖 suspected cases are still sitting in the system awaiting results, so the confirmed number will keep climbing.

Lab capacity has been stretched as testing ran through a single site at Pirbright for most of the outbreak. Defra brought its Weybridge lab online this month and a third site in Scotland (Moredun) is due from early October. I received positive results back this week from animals that were sampled in the first week of August which I make a 𝟕 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 turnaround time.

𝐁𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐅𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲

Autumn block calvers typically start serving at the end of November. For those with bulls running a pre breeding check in the next 3-4 weeks would leave time to act if there are any issues flagged.

Bluetongue causes high temperatures and this is one of the more reliable ways to negatively impact a bull's fertility for several months. Nobody currently has solid figures on exactly how long recovery takes in bulls, which makes a 𝐁𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐄𝐱𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 a very sensible idea. I’d especially recommend this if yours was under the weather or lame at any point this summer.

𝐒𝐅𝐈 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠

SFI26's second window opened and closed on the 22nd September, £𝟐𝟑𝟑 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 of funding gone in under six hours.

If you were counting on that and didn't submit in time, you're not alone and I wanted to recommend a couple of organisations that can offer advice and support.

Farm Cornwall offers free, independent business advice, and The Farming Community Network has a confidential national helpline.

If veterinary advice would be useful, the Animal Health and Welfare Review is still available to offer a funded visit.

As always, available directly at zack@towanvets.co.uk

All the best

Zack