TB: BIOSECURITY IS A MAJOR ISSUE FOR US ALL

10/5/2009 12:00:00 AM

Well it would seem that all we have talked about this year on farm is the emergent threat of Bovine TB. This terrible disease which has been causing havoc in the cattle and dairy industries for a number of years  has finally started to affect the alpaca herds. Some of our friends have been affected and our hearts go out to all alpaca owners struggling to cope with the disease. Concentrated mainly in the South West so far it would seem that the disease is rapidly spreading up the M5 corridor with various isolated incidences in other TB hot spots across the country.

At Toft we have always kept detailed movement records for our alpacas and advised our clients to do likewise as a matter of good practice and to mirror the stricter controls which are applied to other recognised livestock.

Ever since the Foot & Mouth outbreak in 2001 we have been very aware of biosecurity and have constantly maintained on farm biosecurity protocols including incoming and outgoing isolation paddocks for visitors and our own alpacas. We administer this in order to safegaurd the Toft Herd and  our clients alpacas. We constantly assess the risks to our clients and our own alpacas and slowly moving towards maintaining the Toft Herd as a closed herd which eventually will be our ultimate goal.

This year has seen a further tightening of our biosecurity protocols on and off farm through the asking of a lot more questions, contact checks and traceability declarations.

All alpacas visiting our farm have been subject to a detailed questionnaire and once satisfactorily completed all visitors are isolated in their own paddocks. The only contact with our herd or between herds would be via mating itself where the male is brought to the female and once the job is done leaves to enter its own quarantine facility.

All males used for client matings or who have moved off farm for mating are kept separated from the Toft Stud males which remain on farm in their own paddocks at all times.

At Toft we have never run our males back and forward great distances to mate, preferring to lease out males for residency at a farm rather than stress them with too much travel. We currently we do very few mobile/drive by matings and then only locally and with herds that we know are as conscious of their biosecurity as ours.

Any males that arrive on our farm to service any of our females are kept in quarantine and once mated the females are isolated for a further 90 days before rejoining the Toft Herd. We are quite lucky at Toft for the farm splits quite readily into three parts with natural physical boundaries between enabling us to create large quarantine areas.

We have now developed our quarantine paddocks further to give us more flexibility and our clients more separation from each other whilst ensuring that all visiting alpacas can see other alpacas and feel secure in the company of others.

Throughout the 2010 season we will be encouraging clients who live farther afield who want our stud services to bring their females to us. Whilst resident at Toft we will guarantee that their alpacas will be housed in their own quarantine paddock. The only other alpaca they will come into  contact with during their stay will be the stud male of choice. In this way we hope to protect the Toft Herd as best we can and minimize any risks to our clients alpacas whilst resident with us.

We apologize in advance for any further inconvenience this may cause but  we are very aware of the amount of years and money that our clients have put in to develop their herds and we have a duty of care to minimize the risk to that investment whilst they are here for mating.

Mating must continue, these animals need to be pregnant, breeding must progress and not everyone is yet in a position to purchase one of our herdsires. Until they are ready we will do our best to minimize the risk to all alpacas resident at Toft adn continue with business as usual.  

We can only do the best we can with the knowledge of current best practice and hope that the government sees sense and begins to follow the lead taken by the Welsh assembly and adopt a policy of eradication rather than toleration for this terrible disease.