A survey of 240 veterinary surgeons and advisers across the UK has overwhelmingly pinpointed lameness as the top health and welfare challenge facing cattle farmers and vets , with infectious disease second and lack of investment third .

The online survey was carried out in June by CHeCS , which sets standards for infectious disease control and quality assures UK cattle health schemes . It set out to understand how vets and advisers use the schemes and what their key health and welfare priorities are . Eightyfour percent of the respondents were vets with the remainder livestock or animal medicines advisers .

Despite giving participants a free text option to identify any challenge they wanted , more than a third 36 % ( 87 ) specified ‘ lameness ’ as the industry ’ s biggest health and welfare issue . The next most common responses from 13 % ( 31 ) of participants concerned infectious diseases , of which around half specified ‘ TB ’. A range of economic pressures producing low margins which prevented reinvestment in welfare was third , identified by 9 % ( 22 ).

When also asked about the biggest challenge related to farm profitability that cattle farmers and vets face , answers concerning low market prices and / or high input costs were most common ( 21 %), followed by competition caused by Brexit and trade issues ( 20 %), then infectious disease ( 19 %).

A similar question on challenges to industry reputation yielded the top responses of misrepresentation by pressure groups or media ( 15 %), environmental and sustainability issues ( 11 %), and unrealistic ( and sometimes unfounded ) public or campaigner expectations about how animals should be kept ( 10 %).

Welsh dairy farmer Abi Reader , chair of CHeCS , says it was noticeable that the survey raised

a range of challenges outside of farmers ’ control – but also issues they could do something about .

“ At farm level , we are largely unable to influence Brexit or trade matters and have limited impact on sales price or input costs or even misrepresentation , which can be incredibly frustrating ,” says Abi , who runs a 200-cow herd on the family farm near Cardiff .

“ However , lameness and infectious disease are problems we can and must take the opportunity to address as they have a knock-on effect in terms of both profitability and reputation .

“ In the question about challenges to profitability , infectious disease ranked third and most of the answers specified BVD , Johne ’ s Disease or Neospora , all of which we can either reduce the impact of or eliminate completely .”

Abi points out that CHeCS didn ’ t allocate ‘ TB ’ its own category when analysing responses as there ’ s a tendency to forget TB is still just another infectious disease – albeit one that carries a big emotional and financial toll .

“ We ourselves have just come out of a fifteen-month TB restriction on our own farm . What we realised during that time is we can apply our learnings from tackling other infectious

diseases – such the role of improved biosecurity or genetics – to improving our efforts with TB .

“ I feel the same helplessness during testing and frustration when TB breakdowns happen as everyone else . But doing what we can to reduce the risk of it happening again has helped towards alleviating those feelings of powerlessness .”

In the survey , 85 % of participants rated the effectiveness of cattle health schemes at reducing or eliminating infectious disease as ‘ good ’ or ‘ very good ’, with 87 % giving the appropriateness of measures required under CHeCS the same approval .

More than 80 % of those asked about whether identifying biosecurity measures which reduced risk of TB , then rewarding farmers for using them was a good idea , believed it was .

Please visit the CheCS website www . checs . co . uk for details on disease programmes and health schemes which are accredited with CHeCS . Cattle Health Certification Standards ( CHeCS ) is a non-trading organisation established in 1999 by the cattle industry to control and eradicate infectious endemic diseases in cattle – a bit like a quality control or assurance for cattle health schemes .

Top health and welfare challenge facing cattle farmers and vets

No . of respondents

Lameness 87 ( 36 %)

Infectious disease ( including TB )

Economics e . g . prices and margins – preventing reinvestment in welfare

Calf concerns ( e . g . mortality , bull calf euthanasia )

Brexit / trade deals creating lack of markets or unfair competition – preventing reinvestment in welfare

Top profitability challenge facing cattle sectors

Combination of low prices and high input costs

Brexit / trade deals impacting income through lack of opportunity and unfair competition

Infectious disease ( including TB )

31 ( 13 %)

22 ( 9 %)

20 ( 8 %)

15 ( 6 %)

No . of respondents

51 ( 21 %)

49 ( 20 %)

46 ( 19 %)

Cow fertility 16 ( 7 %)

Poor management efficiency or profit focus on-farm

Top reputation challenge facing cattle sectors

Misrepresentation by pressure groups or media

Environment and sustainability concerns ( especially with cattle and climate change )

Unrealistic demands or expectations among public , campaigners or vegans

16 ( 7 %)

No . of respondents

35 ( 15 %)

27 ( 20 %)

24 ( 19 %)

Lameness 20 ( 7 %)

Welfare-related issues including lack of cow comfort , overstocking & poor cleanliness

16 ( 7 %)