Following the outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in Surrey on 3 August, the government asked the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to lead an investigation into biosecurity issues at the Pirbright facility – a site occupied by the Institute of Animal Health (IAH) and also by two private companies called Merial Animal Health Ltd (Merial) and Stabilitech Ltd (Stabilitech). The Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had established that the virus strain causing FMD in the first infected herd of cattle at a farm in Normandy, Surrey was O1 BFS67 (also known as 01 BFS1860 and hereafter referred to as O1 BFS). This is a laboratory strain not naturally found in the environment and was one upon which work was being carried out by all three occupants of the Pirbright site ahead of the first outbreak. HSE’s job was to lead a team to investigate: potential breaches of biosecurity at the Pirbright site; whether such breaches may have led to a release of any specified animal pathogen; whether any such breaches had been rectified to prevent future incidents.
In an ideal world, our cattle would never get sick. But this is the real world, and you need to be prepared. Not only should you have the right medical supplies for your livestock on hand, but also be aware of how to store and handle your livestock medicine.
Storage Facilities
Ideally, maintaining a facility that stores your medicine will keep you organized. Of course, you don’t want to be administering the wrong medicine to your herd. However, it should also protect your medicine from external factors...
By far, most bull calves will never become a lasting benefit to a dairy herd, and as such may not always receive the same level of care that heifer calves do. Harmonizing your calf rearing programs will yield positive results for all calves and your bottom line.
All calves require excellent care, especially in the first few days of life. Without adequate, timely colostrum and proper milk replacer/milk intake, heifer calves will produce less milk later in life, not to mention reduced likelihood of entering the...
In rural Kenya, where it may only rain twice per year, farmers and herders are embracing so-called “climate-smart” agriculture.
The video above, produced by the World Bank, begins by showing how John and Mary Obuom have transformed their one-acre farm into a model of sustainable practices. The family plants a diversity of crops in case one or more fails in a given year. A thicket of cashew trees increases income while providing shade and removing carbon from the air. And an elevated pen for livestock...
From rhinos to #CecilTheLion, we live in a world where stories of species loss and illegal wildlife trade dominate the conservation headlines, so a good news story every now and then is a welcome surprise.
Three years ago, 63 bison originally from Yellowstone National Park left a quarantine facility just outside the park’s boundary where they were being monitored for brucellosis and made the journey nearly 400 miles to the Fort Peck Reservation in northeastern Montana. The transfer, which brought bison...
The Siberian Arctic is one of the most remote and pristine corners of the planet. During the brief summer season, temperatures can climb into the 90s Fahrenheit, and the seemingly endless expanse of boreal forest — or taiga — and tundra explodes with plant and animal life. Every summer since 2008, R. Max Holmes and colleagues from the Woods Hole Research Center have brought a growing international team of undergraduate and graduate students halfway around the world to the Northeast Science Station...
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