M. Bovis

Things have gone seemingly quiet on the subject of M Bovis lately, but I caught the report on Newshub Nation the other day and what we haven't been hearing is the apparent incompetence of the way that MPI have handled the whole matter. There are farmers really hurting out there and with no protection against projected income, it seems that many are either under immense financial pressure, or have been driven to the wall.
You can watch it here is you missed it. Bovis

I've been seeing a lot of reports of the ramping up of activity as the changeover date for dairy farms approaches.

People get lost "in the system", whatever the "system" is, all the time. Organisations don't do "personal" well.

On a different forum that I regularly read there is a comment that resonates the frustration, it's from a framer in the thick of it and who knows farmers with stock that came from infected farms/stock (their previous posts indicated they had passed on details - MPI didn't care). If MPI/the govt think they are containing this, they're bloody dreaming. We simply have too many stock movements in this country to contain such a disease. They want to stop it - then that means all stock and machinery movement between farms has to halt.....however, doing so will kill off our agricultural industry.

www.interest.co.nz/rural-news/99447/amer...-operations#comments

by Belle | 2nd May 19, 5:47pm
MPI have a rather large number of procedures and requirements to follow when you are on movement restrictions. If this bug can truly move as easily as they suggest, we are buggered at the starting gate.
The things I have witnessed. As an example. I was given a 5 litre garden sprayer with their killer powder. Citric acid I think. A stock truck and trailer came in to take away some fat cattle. I looked at all those tyres. Asked the driver where his sprayer was. He said what sprayer. So I puttered around the truck with my dinky little machine that wouldnt have wet a blanket and pretended to do the very best job on about 50 truck tyres. (It seemed like 50) .
The truckees werent interested. What about all those dairy farm employees. Would they give a rats? My grandees had to scrub their boots everytime they walked off the farm onto the section. Humph. Yeah right. The main raceway wasnt to be used by either cattle or cars. Take your pick. But I wasnt there to police it. It is a simple little property but the gaping holes were huge. Multiply that by people who dont care and properties with daily movements of stock and machinery a lot more complex. No wonder Canterbury is a hotbed.

Witchhunting civil servants is such a boring game...grow up, guys!

Every system that is made needs to be tested to check that it works, and to sort out problems. This is usually done by way of practices, such as fire or earthquake drill. But the system for handling unwanted organisms in animals can only be tested on a small scale and by participants that are willing to put up with the hassle of having that practice on their properties. Hopefully, those who are trying to fix this disaster are learning and documenting their mistakes, and ways it could have been done better. Thank goodness that it is not a disease that really matters like foot and mouth, anthrax, rabies, rhinderpest, etc, etc, etc.

well, you ignores the NAIT sytem, so now you takes your medicine!

A neighbor of mine has recently been contacted by MPI regarding bulls he purchased 6 months ago. No one can give him a clear idea of what will happen but it seems likely he will have to cull his entire herd, the small mob involved comes from a farm that has not even been tested positive but have had animals shipped from the south island from a suspected infected herd. Very stressful and from what he has told me one person says one thing another somethings else. They are meant to contact all neighboring properties but we have not heard a thing.

A friend over the way (Clough/Church area) has a neighbour with confirmed (I think) infection. Friend asked one of the guys at the meeting in Kaikohe the other day what the chance of infection is across the boundary and the answer (and this is what I've been hearing elsewhere too) was that there haven't been any known transmissions from casual contact in such circumstances. I wonder whether there has been any further work done on how transmissible it really is from an infected stock truck and so on?

The level of long-distance stock trading in recent decades is ridiculous. Poor bloody animals. Let's go back to the days when they stayed in their own area from birth to death!

Ive been told too after panicking just a little that we should be ok, the mob in question may have possibly been next to some of ours but we do have good hotwire between. they have been told to redo the hot wire on all boundry fences also need a permit for his stock to cross the road .. crazy. They told me saliva so I doubt his bulls would be reaching through hotwire to give our steers a lick. Cattle drool on stock trucks no doubt as they are stressed

We have been isolated from our neighbour by a double fenced creek, but we recently discovered that following the growing of maize 2 years ago, when the lease holder dug up lots of the drainage and electric fencing that was in place, the electric fencing hasn't been replaced. He Now has the land sown in chicory and other rough pastures and moved in about 600 calves which went out when weaned but have been replaced with a huge mob of what looks like cull dairy cows. They are huge cows, freisians the likes of which I have never seen before. A conservative estimate would be at or above 500. They dwarfed the substantial paddock size. With the drought we have had, the creek is dry and with no electric fencing on his boundary anymore, and pressure for grazing, there have been incursions across the creek and into contact with our cattle. I'm not pleased about that.
No MPI agents have been near our place and that's the way I want to keep it.

viki wrote: A neighbor of mine has recently been contacted by MPI regarding bulls he purchased 6 months ago. No one can give him a clear idea of what will happen but it seems likely he will have to cull his entire herd, the small mob involved comes from a farm that has not even been tested positive but have had animals shipped from the south island from a suspected infected herd. Very stressful and from what he has told me one person says one thing another somethings else. They are meant to contact all neighboring properties but we have not heard a thing.

Viki, if that neighbor of yours is with Federated Farmers, tell him to contact them asap, so they can support him. And unless he has things in writing from MPI, not to do anything at all.

I had this conversation with a visitor this morning. He is aware of a localish farm who have been put on a restriction notice with nothing to go in or out. The cows ? have come from the Hawkes Bay area. I believe at this stage he has received no formal advice as to what is to be done with them.

I've noticed the latest figures for infected properties has now risen to 54. That's nearly double the relatively static figure that seemed to be giving us more hope in the early stages of testing. I think my hope went out the stable door on Wildfire.

How many strains of Mycoplasma bovis havethere been identified in New Zealand ?

[email protected] wrote: How many strains of Mycoplasma bovis havethere been identified in New Zealand ?

One.