Selwyn_Times: September 21, 2022

40 Selwyn Times Wednesday September 21 2022
SELWYN RURAL LIFE
M. Bovis infection persists
M. Bovis is not quite finished with
heartland Canterbury.
New Zealand has been working to
eradicate the cattle disease since it was
detected in a South Canterbury farm 2017.
The disease has since been confirmed and
cleared from 271 properties, with more
than 176,000 cattle culled.
In May, the Government announced
there was only one infected property
remaining in the country, understood
to be the Five Star Beef feedlot near
Ashburton.
But testing has since found two more
infections, also in Canterbury. The
second, detected in bulk milk testing, was
reported in June and this month a third
case was disclosed. That infection in Mid
Canterbury was identified via routine
testing.
M. Bovis Programme managers said it’s
standard practice for the programme to
do cattle movement tracing and genomic
analysis when a property is confirmed
infected and they’re working closely with
the farmer.
“Investigations on this property are in
the early stages and genomic analyses, as
well as cattle movement tracing, are under
way to help us understand the infection
source. It is not unexpected that we have
found another infected property at this
stage in the eradication effort. In fact, we
can expect to find more as we continue on
this journey.”
Farmers could “take heart that, while
we may find further infection, we are
undertaking a significant amount of
surveillance, which shows the disease is
not widespread”.
The number of infected farms had tailed
off over the past 18 months, programme
managers said. “With high levels of
background and network surveillance
being undertaken and very few new
active confirmed properties “we can be
optimistic that good progress has been
made towards eradication, and that we are
in the ‘tail end’ of the disease outbreak”.
Meantime they acknowledged calving
was a vulnerable time of the year for M.
Bovis infection.
“As the weather warms up, older calves
are ready to go outside the shed and the
twice-daily milk schedule is cut down to
once a day. This is a stressful time when
M. bovis bacteria may be shed. It’s also
a time when calves often get mixed with
other cattle, perhaps being sold on or new
calves coming onto the farm. This means
a high-risk of infection. Make sure your
calves don’t mix with calves from other
farms unless you’re certain the stock
they’re mixing with don’t have M. bovis or
other diseases.”
For optimal management, tag every calf
born on your farm. Bobby calves under
30 days old going direct to slaughter are
exempt from NAIT requirements but
require a specific tag.
Register each calf into NAIT against your
NAIT number, before they are moved off
your farm and record movements off farm
in the system within 48 hours.
Keep groups of calves separate for 48
hours before mixing them while you
observe them for disease, keep calfrearing
facilities and equipment clean and
limit how many people access calf-rearing
areas.
Get people accessing calf-rearing areas to
clean their boots and PPE, and any other
equipment, and clean them again when
they leave. Also remove sick calves to a
dedicated sick pen, only buy NAIT-tagged
calves with accurate and up-to-date
records and record their arrival on to your
farm.
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