Reports from the UK on the effects of a tough year in the trenches.

greysides

Heard from friend in SE Cornwall of 100 deformed lambs in a flock of Dorsets.

VLA pms said not the 2010/11 Schm v. that they were looking for.
What the hell is it then?
Could have mutated?

Update on this. Friend has had losses of 50% in his Dorsets, and the bigger estate farm 5 miles away, has now lost over 200 lambs.
They have submitted more to Polwehele VLA.

These two farms had Schmll v last year, but on a smaller scale.
With the blitz they've received this year, and with the first samples from the bigger flock apparently negative, they are questioning both the immunity theory, which is assumed at the moment - or a possible virus mutation.
Infection must have occurred sometime after June / July time. (These are flocks of Dorsets, lambing 2 or 3x year.)

The 'immunity theory' is that exposure brings a long-lasting, and therefore protective, immunity to the exposed animals.

They both had confirmed cases last year, but much smaller numbers.
But worryingly the bigger estate farm flock sent a couple out of the first 100 deformed lambs in this year, and tests were apparently negative. Now they've lost 200+, another few have been submitted. So they wait and see.

My friend's flock is smaller, but he has destroyed about half his lamb crop so far. Classic symptoms in both flocks (he says) Not sure if any of his have gone for testing this year. Polwhele VLA aren't keen, as they "know they have Schmll v in Cornwall". Which isn't really a help.

Update on my friend's flock. After a horrendous week and no live lambs at all, he had a live one yesterday.

Samples still not back from AHVLA from either farm. Losses for him are over 70% with this batch of ewe lambs. Another batch has slipped in time from tupping. (40% slipped up to 6 weeks)

greysides

Some more individual accounts:

79 ewes scanned with 152 lambs. Lambs alive 101. Don't get me wrong they are not all dead through S/B but more because of it than not.

A guy round by us has apparently been scanned and only 17% of ewes were in lamb. Tups were tested and carried the virus. Vet said they were infertile due to the virus/temperature.

Just had report back today of our bulk milk sample. It was highly positive. As we farm at 1000ft thought we were low risk as no sign of midge activity up here but I was wrong. I have been quizing my vet for several months but he kept saying we had not had the tell tale clinical signs.
Our August calvers were where the problem started. The cows normally peak at 42 litres, these peaked at 31, the September calvers peaked at 32 and the October calvers at 33. Fresh calvers in the last few weeks seem to be doing better and the November calvers are already up to 37 litres. Fertility has been as good or slightly better than average except for the maiden heifers which we started to serve 30th October which are worse than the cows!

Just spoke to our scanner - scanned 28 ewes found 1 lamb, 10 SBV lambs in an early lambing flock with no sign of problems at scanning, scanned 200 found 35 lambs ...... I think 2013 may prove to be the Year of Fortitude for shepherds.

Spoke to someone from near Plymouth tonight. He told me about a near neighbour that had scanned 1200 ewes, carrying a total of 174 lambs. That would be a devastating hit on any business ...........

The next comment is in answer to the previous remark.

More to this than the virus, most flocks around here have been infected and whilst the lambing % born is down on average that is more than likely due to the weather/poor grass but the lambs are being born but are deformed etc,

It does causes cows to abort it seems but not heard it doing it in sheep on this sort of scale either last year or so far this year.

bob charles

thats pretty horrendous reading. seems like there is going to be only one option for allot of these farmers.

Username John

Thanks for posting grey sides.

Do we have any info on the virus in Ireland (all the comments above are from the UK I assume)

greysides

I reckon the UK is a year ahead of us. It arrived a year earlier and spread widely West and North during the course of this year. Some of the further north locations are transport based but it certainly has reached the Scottish border and beyond under its' own steam. It's looking as though their second lambing season could be worse than their first- maybe more empties and less deformities, although we'll only know that in retrospect. How much of the problem is weather/nutrition related is impossible to say, however what concerns me is that SBV is not being taken seriously here and whatever advantage there may be to being a year behind the UK, it's something we should be trying to use.

When I say 'not being taken seriously' I mean that I don't think enough people are aware of it. I'm not being questioned about it. I'm not sure how anyone can take steps to dodge it given it's effects are dependent on the timing of exposure to pregnant females. How do you try to time the exposure of something you've no control over? Maybe a vaccine will be available in time but do people have enough awareness to search one out?

At high levels in the EU vaccination is not being pushed ahead with gusto as the view is that exposure brings life-long immunity. That seems to have been the case in France, so far. But given that the current SBV is considered to be a recombinant virus, a child of two different viruses of the same family, how long with it stay stable so that a vaccine produced against will be effective. There is already some concern that it may have already have mutated again. Very similar story to the Human Influenza virus and we know of the guess work that goes into producing the vaccine for the yearly flu jab where the strains in circulation may vary each year.

If SBV does turn out to have mutated already then the animals could be hit with a different version every year, one they are unprotected against. What company is going to try to produce vaccine for such a rapidly changing virus. The virus would have changed by the time the vaccine was ready.

This is a new disease and a lot of the initial 'information' was heavily based on what was known of similar members of the family elsewhere in the world. It seemed as though we could safely extrapolate over to make up for our initial ignorance. But if mutation has already occurred then we are dealing with a very different virus with much more malignant tendencies. There is cause for concern when a flock that had exposure the first year, and therefore in line conventional knowledge, should be immune from consequences the next year, has an even worse year.


Hopefully those cases listed above are extreme cases and overall it will not be as bad. If the worst does come to pass and we get off lightly then we may have improved markets and prices for our lambs due to suffering of our neighbours but at the cost of us then being hard hit the following year.

Hopefully, the virus will be prove to be stable and the case in the first post proven to be due to other factors but this is something that even if we can't do much about, we need to keep an eye on.

The virus is already in counties Wexford and Cork. It is thought to have arrived across the Irish Sea during the summer. And it sure didn't go county hoping, it will have spread like a breaking wave. Wexford and Cork aren't going to be the only counties that will show it's presence.

The comments are taken from the UK-based British Farming Forum.

pakalasa

If you have a cow that has aborted, does the department check for SBV?
Or do you have to specifically request it?

mf240

Are the symptoms less severe in cows?

Are there any symptoms or deformities unique to this disease?

If it goes through the herd are they then immune for life?

greysides

Can't answer that for certain, Pakalasa. I've not heard that are doing so but if they wanted to for monitoring purposes they certainly could as they have the test available and the sample required is the same as would be submitted for Brucellosis. They could some of the same sample.

greysides

mf240 wrote: »

Are the symptoms less severe in cows?

Are there any symptoms or deformities unique to this disease?

If it goes through the herd are they then immune for life?

I think most of those questions are answered in more detail in this thread from earlier.

In short, no, yes, yes but...

The symptoms are similar in both species. The focus on sheep at the moment is due to the evidence from scanning and the effects are due to timing. That timing will be different for cattle- breeding season is earlier and window for deformities is slightly later in the gestation.

Sheep are showing empty, possibly due to an effect of the virus on the rams, a temporary fever-related effect but devastating if the timing is unfortunate.

Empties aren't considered a problem in cattle by conventional wisdom but in my mind that has yet to be conclusively proven for this virus. With the SMEDI-like pattern of disease I'd not be holding my breath.

The pattern of disease has similarities to the effects of BVD infection during pregnancy; it is considered identical to Akabane Disease (as this is it's nearest, best known, pathogenic viral relative). Essentially abortion, musculoskeletal deformities and brain deformities.

Convention has it, as discussed above, that exposure leads to an immunity that is life-long... based on extrapolation from Akabane virus. Problem is that there has been reason to think this virus may have mutated......... it's only a possibility yet, far from proven but in that case the answer would be no.

greysides

ttt

rancher

greysides wrote: »

I think most of those questions are answered in more detail in this thread from earlier.

In short, no, yes, yes but...

The symptoms are similar in both species. The focus on sheep at the moment is due to the evidence from scanning and the effects are due to timing. That timing will be different for cattle- breeding season is earlier and window for deformities is slightly later in the gestation.

Sheep are showing empty, possibly due to an effect of the virus on the rams, a temporary fever-related effect but devastating if the timing is unfortunate.

Empties aren't considered a problem in cattle by conventional wisdom but in my mind that has yet to be conclusively proven for this virus. With the SMEDI-like pattern of disease I'd not be holding my breath.

The pattern of disease has similarities to the effects of BVD infection during pregnancy; it is considered identical to Akabane Disease (as this is it's nearest, best known, pathogenic viral relative). Essentially abortion, musculoskeletal deformities and brain deformities.

Convention has it, as discussed above, that exposure leads to an immunity that is life-long... based on extrapolation from Akabane virus. Problem is that there has been reason to think this virus may have mutated......... it's only a possibility yet, far from proven but in that case the answer would be no.

I had more deformed lambs than usual this year, had to put down six, two more died that were headcases, made no effort to suck/live, another born missing an eye.....all in 70 lambs. Anyway got them tested, also the mid season lambers, all came back negative, so was relieved....until now..is it possible that they were false negatives

greysides

Rancher, possible maybe, but all this is up in the air at the moment. The advantage of knowing is that 'IF' immunity is long-lasting then it could be worth keeping the mothers, maybe their other surviving female off-spring too. There doesn't appear to be a major impetus to facilitate get the vaccine up and running quickly. The view is being taken that this disease is relatively minor after the first year and exposure leads to long immunity. Some of the authors of the quotes above may dispute the 'minor' tag and there are certainly a few questions about the 'long immunity' tag.

While there may be a very limited number of preventative/ameliorating measures that can be taken (all insect repellents are essentially useless, how can you possibly know when to time insemination), I think there isn't enough general awareness of the effects this disease may visit on the odd farmer. Not necessarily 'every' or even 'most' farmers.

Individual circumstances may allow some to take some to take some measures (split lambing times/breeding times, not all eggs in one basket, literally; also do the utmost to keep rams away from midges as if the ram is temporarily infertile as just the wrong time.......) but mostly it will be pot luck.

In England there are (Brincombe?) licks available containing garlic, these may be as useful, and available for self-medication on a daily basis, as any of the repellents.

Other possible causes could be Border Disease (any 'Hairy Shaker' lambs?), genetics (new ram?), maybe fungal toxins in feed (very damp year). I would submit bloods from the ewes as well as dead lambs.