Responses
673 responses received in total
321 with breeding dairy animals
410 with breeding beef animals
659 herds with youngstock
58% were English with Wales, N. Ireland and Scotland fairly evenly split at around 14% each
2. Calving pattern
Whilst overall most herds were AYR calving, Wales had a higher proportion of spring calving herds and there was significant representation of seasonal calving herds from all 4 nations. In the beef sector spring calving was most prevalent with 187 of 339 (England 178, Scotland 81, Wales 54 and N Ireland 39) herds with breeding beef animals being spring calving and 93 having both spring and autumn blocks. Unsurprisingly those farms with breeding dairy animals and no beef breeding stock (England 178, N Ireland 31, Wales 31 and Scotland 16) were responsible for massively increasing the overall number of farms AYR calving with 173 out of 263 falling into this category, 46 autumn calving, 30 having both a spring and autumn block and only 14 spring calving.
BVD Prevalence
330 respondents in England and Wales, where testing has thus far been voluntary, were testing at least annually but had not found evidence of BVD within their herd in the last 5 years. However there were 75 herds in England and Wales that said they weren’t testing regularly. In Scotland and N Ireland where eradication schemes are mandatory 158 respondents said they had not found BVD in their herds whereas 14 had. PIs had been found on herds in all 4 nations- 53 in England, 13 in N Ireland, 5 in Scotland and 6 in Wales. On 14 farms in England and 5 in Wales evidence of BVD had been found but no PIs identified. Further work would be needed to establish if this was due to a lack of PI hunting or transient infection from sources not at or no longer on the farm.
Biosecurity, Replacement Policies and “Closed” Herd
478 respondents said they ran a closed herd. However, despite this there were still a large number of respondents buying stock in. A total of 350 respondents said they bought in animals- 189 bulls, 100 non-pregnant animals and 61 pregnant heifers or cows. This demonstrates a significant biosecurity risk to these herds and the potential to “buy in BVD”.
3. What is your replacement policy?
Of those that claimed to be a closed herd there was still a significant number within this category who were buying in cattle or rearing youngstock away that would return to the source farm. Particularly evident and worrying was the 91 “closed herds” that were in fact bringing bulls on to the farm. This poses a particularly high risk in herds that may be naïve to and therefore highly susceptible to BVD unless there is a robust quarantine, biosecurity control and vaccination strategy in place. It also brings in to question the definition of a closed herd in it’s true sense and raising awareness of BVD and other infectious diseases that could enter a farm in this way.
4. Closed Herds- What is your replacement policy?
Other measures that people were implementing to prevent BVD incursion into herds included vaccination, management of boundaries, quarantine and diagnostic monitoring.
5. What BVD control measures do you already have in place?
When bringing cattle on to their holding 176 said they were quarantining and 167 said they were testing all incoming cattle. This does not tally with the number of respondents that appear to be moving cattle between holdings- 189 bringing on bulls, 100 buying in non-pregnant heifers/cows, 100 rearing calves/heifers away, 61 purchasing pregnant heifers or cows, 35 buying fattening stock and 10 bringing animals in from Europe. This highlights another potential biosecurity breach that could go undetected until BVD clinically manifests itself, especially in naïve and unvaccinated herds.
PI Animals
Whilst 338 herds had never knowingly had a PI, and 195 respondents had culled identified PIs immediately, there were still 60 respondents who had not done so. PI animals were retained because the farmer either thought they looked healthy or doubted the PI test result. 44 tried to rear to slaughter, 5 did nothing and 11 (England 8, Scotland 1 and Wales 3) actually sold animals that they knew to be confirmed PIs . Encouragingly 98% of those who had kept a PI in the past said they would not do it again.
6. What do you do with identified PIs?
Neighbouring Stock
Many respondents across the nations were concerned about the BVD status of their neighbouring stock. Of the 321 who raised this as a worry 304 said it was difficult to know what the BVD status of neighbouring stock was with only 17 saying that they were aware that their neighbours had BVD on their farm. Of those that were not concerned the biggest reason was that all boundaries were double fenced followed by trusting them. 38 respondents said they were not concerned about their neighbours BVD status and that their own cattle were grazing the neighbouring land. Whilst these measures could be considered individual parts of a farm BVD control plan they certainly aren’t infallible and if not monitored very closely again could leave the door open for the ingress of BVD in to susceptible herds.
7. Do you worry about your neighbours BVD status?
Eradication Programmes
Most respondents saw improvements in herd health by engaging with their local BVD eradication programme. It is worth noting that herds that did not have BVD also saw a benefit to herd health by joining their national scheme. However, 44% did not think they had seen a perceived benefit from doing so. The most common positive benefits identified were; an overall healthier herd (235), improved fertility (143) and a decreased level of disease seen in calves (137)
8. Have you seen a perceived benefit from engaging with your national eradication scheme?
England
The top 3 reasons that respondents had or would engage with BVD free England were- recognition for taking care of their animals (113), increased herd performance (105) and it being a requirement for herd assurance scheme (69). The vast majority, 85%, of English respondents thought that eradication should be made compulsory. Fewer people saw financial payment and premiums paid at market as a reason to engage with the control programme and 6 people said they just wouldn’t join.
9. As eradication is not mandatory in England what your reasons for joining the scheme?
In England, 152 of 390 had accessed and completed the animal health and welfare pathway to access funding towards BVD control. Fifty two had started but not completed the pathway and worryingly 110 respondents were not even aware that this funding existed. Thirty six felt it wasn’t worth the bother which leads to the question of whether they have discussed the procedure with their vet to gauge what is actually involved.
10. Have you accessed the animal health and welfare pathway funding for BVD?
Wales
In Wales the funded testing under the voluntary Gwaredu BVD scheme ceased at the end of 2023. However, from 1st July 2024 all cattle herds in Wales are required to carry out antibody screening for BVD annually - 75/88 Welsh respondents thus far engaged with the Gwaredu BVD scheme. However, despite the high level of engagement in Wales and 52% perceiving a benefit(s) from doing so, a significant 48% did not and perhaps looking into reasons for this should be investigated further. There were only 6 respondents who said they weren’t aware of the scheme and 6 who were aware but had not got round to it.
11. Did you sign up for Gwaredu BVD?
Of those who had taken part in the scheme 65% had achieved gold status, 18% silver and 12% bronze.
12. What Gwaredu BVD status did you achieve?
Going forward herds will be assigned with a status of either BVD negative or BVD Not Negative and from 1st July 2025 movement restrictions will apply to whole herds rather than individual animals.
See welsh-bovine-viral-diarrhoea-eradication-scheme-guidance.pdf (gov.wales) for further information.
Scotland
Here, where the eradication scheme is mandatory, the number who perceived there to be no benefit from engaging with the scheme was significantly lower at 33%, and 46% felt they had an overall healthier herd (vs Wales at just 27%). When asked whether the scheme should essentially be a one size fits all with all herds adhering to the same rules there was an overwhelming feeling (92% of replies) that this should indeed be the case. Only 2% thought that BVD control should be voluntary and 4% thought it should be limited to breeding herds where calves are born.
13. Should BVD controls apply to all herds?
Northern Ireland
Although 38 (41%) of NI respondents did not report seeing any perceived benefit from engaging with their national scheme, 33% felt their herd was healthier overall, 26% saw a reduction in calf diseases, 22% saw improved fertility and 15% had reduced their antibiotic usage as a result.
Although there is a relatively high number of people vaccinating in NI, 38% of those that aren’t employing a vaccine felt that the eradication scheme was sufficient such that they did not need to which could pose a risk.
However, although the control programme was perceived as a replacement for vaccination by some it was evident that a few farmers still had PIs on their farm. Although 3 died or were euthanised before reaching productive size an equal number were reared to slaughter weight. This raises some concerns regarding the retention of PI animals and the potential impact they could have not just on the rest of their herd but also other neighbouring herds or spread via people or equipment to susceptible farms that don’t think that they need to vaccinate.
14 - Have you ever retained a PI and what was the outcome?
Fortunately 18 people who had knowingly retained a PI before said they wouldn’t do it again with only one respondent saying that they would repeat this behaviour.
15. If you have retained a PI, would you do it again?
Vaccination
16. Do you vaccinate and if so which vaccine do you use?
Overall, 386 (60%) of respondents reported using vaccination across the nations with a fairly even split between dead (Bovilis, MSD Animal Health) and live (Bovela, Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health UK) vaccines commercially available in the UK.
17. Why did you start to vaccinate?
Overwhelmingly vaccines were being used as part of a preventative plan in herds where BVD had not been diagnosed (58%), BVD had been diagnosed in 32% of vaccinating herds whilst the remaining 10% said other reasons were behind their decision to engage with vaccination
18. What makes you decide on which vaccine to use?
When looking at vaccine choices ease of use was cited as the most common reason (43%) followed by it being “the best vaccine for the job” (37%) with cost (13%) and safety of vaccine (7%) ranking relatively low down on the list. There seems to be some differences between the number using modified live single dose and dead multi dose vaccines and those that mentioned ease of use. There may be some further educational pieces to be carried out around how different vaccines work and protocols for their use to avoid breakdown in vaccine compliance and efficacy.
19. Have you had to restart a vaccination due to timing issues?
When considering ease of use and the “best” vaccine, it was interesting to see that 86 (13%) of those vaccinating had had to restart their vaccination course because they had either incorrectly timed the 2 shot primary course of a dead vaccine (30%), had gone beyond the 12 month window for the dead vaccination booster (49%) or had missed giving the 6 month booster required for dead vaccine (21%). Complicated protocols with multiple doses and an initial booster at 6 months rather than 12 months can lead to misunderstandings and reduced compliance which poses a risk for herd immunity.
Most respondents were using vaccination as an insurance policy (52%) followed by doing so because their vet had advised them to do so (43%), then other reasons (5%), only 0.3% were vaccinating because a fellow farmer had advised them to. Of those not vaccinating reasons cited were- I don’t have BVD on my farm (63%), cost (7%), I have good biosecurity (16%), felt no need due to eradication scheme (8%) and other reasons (6%).
BVD status testing
20. How do you check if BVD is in your herd?
In England and Wales where, until very recently regarding Wales, the schemes have not been mandatory, respondents were asked how they checked the BVD status of their herd. In England tag and testing is the most common type of testing in (38% respondents) and although similar to previous years (2021 42%, 2020 43%, 2019 37% and 2018 27%) has decreased slightly, followed by youngstock check tests (28%) and bulk milk testing (25%). In Wales, unsurprisingly with the funding that was available, the Gwaredu BVD scheme testing (32%) and youngstock testing (31%) were higher than tag and testing (21%) and bulk milk sampling (17%).
21. Have you used tag and test and if so which animals have you tested?
it is interesting to see the animals that people are choosing to tag, or not. From those using this form of testing (320), only 137 (43%) are tag and testing all calves born dead or alive whist 150 (47%) are only tagging calves born alive and the remainder were only tagging some calves, mainly live heifer calves (5%). This remains similar to the 2021 survey results where 45% were tagging all calves born dead or alive. There is still clearly some work to be done here in providing robust education and reasoning behind the importance of tagging all calves whatever their status especially as there are more people tagging only live calves than all calves born alive or dead.
This is a very risky strategy as PI animals can be born dead or weak and could easily be missed by not tagging every single calf born on the farm whether it is alive or dead at or soon after birth. It also doesn’t make financial sense to scrimp on tagging as the very animals that are left untested could in fact be PIs which may bring into question the status of their dam or the BVD status of the herd as a whole.
Bovela® lyophilisate and solvent for suspension for injection for cattle contains modified live BVDV-1, non-cytopathic parent strain KE-9: 104.0–106.0 TCID50, Modified live BVDV-2, non-cytopathic parent strain NY-93: 104.0– 106.0 TCID50. UK: POM-V. Further information available in the SPC or from Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health UK Ltd, RG12 8YS, UK. Tel: 01344 746957. Email: vetenquiries@boehringer-ingelheim.com. Bovela® is a registered trademark of Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica GmbH, used under licence. ©2024 Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health UK Ltd. All rights reserved. Date of preparation: July 2024. BOV-0097-2024. Use Medicines Responsibly.