Steps to protect national flock health highlighted at NSA Sheep Event

The importance of prioritising flock health was a key message delivered to visitors attending the National Sheep Association (NSA) Sheep Event this week.

From seminar discussions to practical advice delivered in the many workshops and demonstrations the event provided farmers with useful information on many aspects of flock health to consider for their own farming enterprises.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the event, Government Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO) Christine Middlemiss (pictured below alongside NSA President Lord Inglewood and Hazel Wright, WVSC) highlighted how crucial the nation’s disease status as a whole was to the UK. Christine stated that it helped to maintain the UK’s high welfare standards but also commanded respect from across the globe and it therefore mattered to the nation’s with whom the UK can trade with, helping drive profitability. 

Ms Middlemiss continued to encourage farmers to ensure they now make use of the schemes available to them to help protect flock health including the Animal and Health Pathway scheme and its new Endemics diseases offering.

With the Chief Vet in attendance the event also proved the perfect opportunity to also announce news of NSA Cymru / Wales Region’s financial support for a new project led by the Wales Veterinary Science Centre (WVSC) taking control of the future health and welfare of Wales’s sheep flock.

The project, to test for iceberg diseases, such as Maedi-Visna, Johnes, CLA and hopefully Border disease, will make improvements in sheep health and welfare, improve disease control, specify agreed standards to ensure a level playing field and create strong links with stakeholders like farmers, vets and consumers.

Joining the opening ceremony Hazel Wright of WVSC said that they were pleased to be partnering with NSA for this and explained to the event audience the many challenging issues with iceberg diseases and why the new screening tests would be so valuable to farmers.

Funding provided by NSA Wales / Cymru Region will allow Wales’s Veterinary Science Centre to acquire vital equipment needed to offer sheep serology (blood) testing as a screening tool for flocks identifying these serious sheep diseases) that continue to have devastating effects on sheep flocks across Wales and beyond.

NSA Wales / Cymru Development Officer Helen Roberts comments: “NSA Cymru is pleased to support this initiative which we hope will not just benefit the Welsh sheep industry but the UK sector as a whole.

“The scheme to monitor and improve health of sheep flocks in the UK offers strong hope that steps can be taken towards improved disease control and ultimate reduction of incidence.”

The sheep serology will be accessible once Wales’s Veterinary Science Centre (WVSC) has purchased equipment and undertaken staff training. The long-term view of the project is to work with stakeholders to create a national flock scheme.