Welcome to Ruminant Health & Welfare

While we all anticipated it was coming, it is still a serious blow that bluetongue has appeared in the UK and it is imperative that everyone works together to minimise the spread of this disease. At Ruminant Health & Welfare our BTV’s working group of experts from across the industry has launched a united plan to help inform and educate farmers and stakeholders on this disease.

Chaired by RH&W and powered by AHDB, this group managed quickly to pull together an online Bluetongue update meeting which had over 1,500 registrations. Many farmers joined the session and took part, asking questions which were answered by representatives from APHA and Defra.

The group has continued to work hard to provide online resources offering clear information to farmers and vets on movement licences and BTV-3 vaccine comparisons as well as daily updates, further webinars for farmers and an in-person meeting for farmers in East Yorkshire.

This group is also working on on-going resources to help share practical advice as well as facts to avoid misinformation spreading. Please read on to find out more.

The RH&W reporting cattle abortions and still-births campaign was launched last month ahead of autumn block calving and has been picked up by many key media outlets. Please do take a moment to read the campaign materials and download the flyer to share on-farm. 

It was with sadness that we said a fond farewell to Charles Sercombe last week, with whom many in the sheep and lamb sector were connected. It was a huge funeral, and colleagues and friends of Charles had travelled from all parts of the country to be there. I attended the funeral to pay my respects to a man who had given a great deal to the industry and was taken far too young. Our thoughts are with his wife Helen and their three children.

Our next RH&W steering group meeting will take place on Wednesday 2^nd October where government representatives from Scotland, Wales and England will be sharing the progress on each nations’ health and welfare strategies, with Northern Ireland sharing theirs at a future meeting once they are ready with their plans. It will be very interesting to see the similarities and differences in national plans.

As ever, new members to RH&W are very welcome, so please share this email with anyone you feel would be interested in joining getting involved and/or with our welfare strategies. They can then email RuminantHW@ahdb.org.uk to request to join.



Gwyn Jones
Chair
RH&W