Abortion losses put at £90m (From Gazette & Herald)

Abortion losses put at £90m

SHEEP health is the topic of a free information meeting to be held later this month at Malton.

Abortion can cause tremendous losses in any sheep flock and orf is a viral disease that causes painful scabby lesions, generally around the mouths of lambs. Both are therefore serious welfare problems.

The meeting is designed to help sheep farmers achieve more effective control of both of these diseases.

Dr David Buxton, senior veterinary pathologist from the Moredun Research Institute in Edinburgh, will provide information on what is known about the main causes of sheep abortion as well as giving practical advice about the control strategies currently available.

He commented: "Moredun conducted a survey in 2000 and found that typically lamb mortality runs at about 15pc which equates to 3m lambs lost in the UK annually, worth about £90m.

"A large proportion of those lambs are lost due to infectious abortion and hopefully this figure can be drastically reduced on farms if an effective control strategy is implemented."

Dr Peter Nettleton, senior veterinary virologist at Moredun, will speak about orf, explaining how the disease spreads before highlighting the options available to help control this all too common problem.

The meeting at the Green Man, Malton is supported by Intervet Animal Health and will be chaired by local farmer and Moredun director Charles Marwood. Admission is free, Wednesday, November 19, beginnig at 7.30pm.

Updated: 10:13 Wednesday, November 05, 2003