First 50 farmers respond to calf and lamb loss survey – add your own results
More than 50 farmers have already responded to an online survey, which aims to quantify how many producers are seeing high levels of barren animals when pregnancy scanning.
As reported by Farmers Weekly last week, some scanners are finding unusually high numbers of empty ewes and cattle.
One in the north east of England said that 50% of the 4,000 cows he had scanned had shown either empty or with dead calves.
Another in the West Midlands reported anomalies in about a third of the 8,000 early lambing ewes examined so far this year.
Possible causes put forward by vets and animal health experts include Schmallenberg virus or poor nutrition following a year of extreme weather.
Of the respondents who have submitted results so far, 37% said they were seeing “losses” of 11% and higher.
Two producers estimated their losses at more than half.
Help us build a more complete picture of the scale of the problem by completing the short online survey.
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