The Department of Environment, Food & Agriculture is pleased to announce a workshop on its Bovine Virus Diarrhoea (BVD) Control Strategy, to take place at the Glen Helen on Thursday 31st January 2013.
Minister Gawne said “by introducing the BVD Control Strategy I am determined to give farmers the best start in their efforts to further improve the performance in their own herds and as a direct consequence, improve the island’s animal disease status. I am delighted to hear that over 7,000 tissue sampling tags have already been ordered by farmers, displaying a strong commitment on their part”
Due to the extremely high numbers of cattle farmers who signed up to the strategy, representing almost 80% of total calves on the Island, DEFA will be running two workshops. It is essential that you contact the Department to book in for your chosen time as space is limited.
There will be a session at 2pm and another at 7.30pm. Richard Ashworth, Government Veterinary Officer will give a short presentation on BVD from a veterinary perspective. This will be followed by a practical presentation from Mr Liam Egan, General Manager of Eurotags. Mr Egan will cover the application of the Allflex tissue tag on farm and also outline the voluntary BVD program carried out in Ireland in 2012. A question and answer session will follow.
The Department will have the tissue sampling tags available for collection at the workshop, together with specific TST ear taggers. We will also be offering new taggers free of charge to replace the blue ear taggers currently used. If you wish to exchange your blue taggers, please bring these to the workshop.
More information can be found on BVD Control Strategy on the DEFA website: http://www.gov.im/daff/animals/Cattle/bvd.xml.
To book in for the Workshop, please contact Agriculture@gov.im or 685844.
