TB testing week! Running 600+ cattle through the cattle crush twice, every steer will lose two days of weight gain this week, that’s 2 tonnes of daily live weight gain lost. Feeding 15 tonnes a day of forage and feed that’s 30 tonnes of evaporated energy. The hidden costs... of TB.show more

I think your been kind tbh. I think the stress of the whole farm hearing cattle move around all day unsettles them for a while. I think it takes a week to recover from it.

I’m expecting a weekly gain of 10-12kg per head. On a Tb week it’s usually 7-8.5kg. Stress is a huge factor to farmer and animal!!

On top of the weight gain loss, it stresses the cattle, and then next thing your battling pneumonia if the weather goes against you, best of luck.

@DeclanJoyce21 Don’t forget labour cost and the odd injury. It’s relentless

I am retired now but was a dairy farmer. I remember the milk loss during TB testing. It could go down 10%. It came back after but not the full 10%. It also affected fertility.

I would usually loose one animal per herd test, just find them dead a few days after unexpectedly. What we also found that the more animals that passed through the crush for dosing/vaccine the higher mortality was so I eliminated as much crush work as possible

@DavidButler34 if all finished cattle are going direct to abattoir . . seems a pointless exercise . . they could save a few bucks there 🤔

@DavidButler34 Haven’t sold through auction or privately in over 30 years, I’ve a contract only to sell to one specific abattoir. And still testing again and again. 150 of what was tested this week will be processed in the next few weeks, and most will be gone before Christmas.

@sjtomo157 Why are cattle going to slaughter tested at all? Who are they a danger to?

Test a gwaed nesa yma yn Rhagfyr, mi roddent eisiau gwneud y gwaed arwahan ond mi roes fyn rhoed i lawr…