11 Sep Farmer obligations at their TB test
The legislation that allows for statutory control of bovine TB places an obligation on cattle owners to present their cattle ‘safely and efficiently’ for the purposes of disease surveillance.
No third party is likely to be successful in arguing retrospectively with the attendant vet’s judgement regarding health and safety risks while testing on any specific day. However, it has been an on-going and long -running ‘thorn in the side’ of those vets representing service delivery that there is no clear definition, or indeed any case law, surrounding what might constitute ‘inefficient’ presentation of cattle.
XL Farmcare have used throughput information collected via TOM to help practices understand what throughput rates are typical and what kind of throughput rate may be in the realm of being too slow or indeed too fast. However, at present, ways to fairly address inefficient presentation remain a matter that must be discussed between the attending practice and the farmer.
One aspect that relates to the efficient presentation of an individual animal for testing is the very well described obligations of the farmer to clearly identify their cattle using ear tags.
Some practices have found it useful to include some text in a letter sent prior to the test that makes specific reference to the clear identification of individual animals. Once the test is underway some farmers can get quite disgruntled if there are delays in test submission which then commonly result in management disruption on farm.
Practices find themselves better able to manage this bad feeling if they can make reference to the fact that they clearly warned the farmer in advance that they had expected all stock to be presented and all of them to have clear individual identification.
Some practices have even turned their message into a positive; offering to ‘check’ all tagging on day one then order, and replace, lost tags at day two of the test. However, this process still slows the test down as the untagged animals need clear identification with a temporary mark and for this mark to be noted against the animals record such that everything can be reconciled with the farm’s CTS record. It can frequently mean more personnel being involved too.