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Voices from the Fields

'Test, kill cows, get negative results, repeat' - A bovine TB nightmare

England
Cattle
Dairy
Defra
policy

NFFN England chair James Robinson has put pen to paper to share his frustration at how bovine TB is dealt with. A version of this article was originally published in Farmers Guardian.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” is a widely circulated quote. It is often misattributed to Albert Einstein, but likely originated in the early 1980s.

That well-used quote feels more than pertinent to our own situation with bovine TB (mycobacterium bovis) here at Strickley, as we are still stuck testing almost three years since our first ever outbreak, and still losing cattle to each skin test, despite never having the disease confirmed.

Our case is extremely complicated, and it is quite difficult to explain, but here goes.

Our first breakdown was at a whole-herd skin test in November 2023. That was the first time we had ever had an inconclusive reactor (IR), never mind an actual reactor. The reactors were taken, the IRs isolated and samples taken, with no visible lesions found at post-mortem.

At that point I was convinced we must have bTB, as I had complete faith in the skin test. After all, the odds of a false positive were 5000-1. However, my faith in that skin test has diminished considerably after being caught up in what seems like an endless sequence of testing for the past three years. Over that time, we have lost 83 cows.

The majority of those cows were taken either as reactors, or double IRs, with some single IRs taken as dangerous contacts in a bid to find (or disclose) bTB. No visible lesions have ever been found; all have tested negative using the high-specificity gamma test. Since March 2024, all have been tested using a tissue sample polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, with all animals returning negative results. All samples have been grown for cultures, with no bTB found.

So, what is happening? We have been asking that question for a long while now. We began to doubt the presence of bTB in the herd after a few short-interval tests failed to disclose the disease. And a short time later, Defra’s Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) suggested the same.

It seemed that our cows were most probably reacting to the skin test due to a cross-reaction from another unidentified mycobacterium. The plan was to use a policy called ‘non-specific reactor policy’ (NSR).

My faith in the skin test has diminished considerably after being caught up in what seems like an endless sequence of testing for the past three years. Over that time, we have lost 83 cows.

James Robinson

After three short-interval tests where we had reactors, any first IRs on farm would be cleared on a gamma blood test and then the farm would be given a six-month break from testing. The idea behind the policy is so that herd immunity can develop to whatever is causing the cross-reaction to the skin test.

Following the break, we endured another skin test failure, where many more cows had reactions, and we lost more cows again. This time, two of them were sent to an APHA lab for a full post-mortem. Nothing was found.

Lots of tissue samples, lots of bloods, all showing no visible lesions (NVL), all showing no bTB on culture, all negative on gamma and PCR.

Another NSR was then instigated, this time with a 12-month break from testing. This is when we took some cows to The Westmorland Show and came away with supreme dairy champion for the first time in our 150-year history of exhibiting there. To some people, it may seem crazy for us to be allowed to attend a show with all that is going on, but our animals have been tested more than anyone else’s in the county and no bTB has ever been found in any of them.

During that NSR period, we paid for extensive testing in the environment in an attempt to identify a mycobacterium that the cows were exposed to. The most likely cause, according to some, was Mycobacterium microti, commonly spread by rodents, especially voles, but PCR tests run on the animals culled have always been negative for this, and no lesions found either.

The only thing that has been found in the environmental samples was one water trough sample positive for MTB complex and mycobacterium avian subspecies hominissuis (MAH).

This was also isolated and cultured from tissue samples from one reactor cow in April 2025. MAH is completely harmless to cattle, and has no effect on them or us, but could it be the thing that is causing the cross-reaction? In theory, the avian reaction lump at the skin test should be larger than the bovine lump, but there is so little evidence done on mycobacteria in cattle other than M. bovis that it is difficult to know for certain.

Directly following the second NSR period, the June 2026 skin test was awful. Out of our 120 adult cows, four were reactors and 27 were IRs. This was a huge amount. All 31 were negative on the high-specificity gamma test, while the four slaughtered cows were all negative PCR and NVL.

We paid for ancillary testing using Biotech’s Actiphage bTB test on the 27 first-time IRs. It looks for live DNA in blood and is incredibly specific. They all came back negative. We did this in an attempt to prevent those IRs from being taken at the short-interval test which was triggered following the June result. Any ancillary testing has to be sanctioned by the APHA, even though all the costs are borne by us.

The recent Government Bovine TB Eradication Strategy states that ancillary testing will be used alongside the current skin and blood tests, but unfortunately, they are not getting these accredited fast enough to help with cases like ours.

We had an initial meeting on farm with Christine Middlemiss, the Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO), in March 2025, when we were promised action and a plan to help free our farm from the situation we were in. Nothing really changed, and any follow-up communication was done through our case vet. Each time, nothing new was brought to the table.

What is APHA doing about our situation then? Well, at a field level, they have been good. Our current case vet has really got their teeth into our problem in an attempt to find the cause. The next rung of the ladder is also doing what they can. But if you try to go any further up the chain, direct communication is not allowed.

We do not have access to the actual team who make decisions on testing. We do not know the reasoning behind those decisions. Both our vet Kirsty Howson and I requested to attend the meeting where our case was being discussed, but we were refused. I wrote an impact statement detailing the mental strain our family was going through and the financial impact their policies were having on our business, which was read out on my behalf. It didn’t make any difference. Any IRs which were IR again would be classed as reactors, despite a negative gamma in June and a negative Actiphage test.

Our short-interval test was read on the 31st of August, and we lost 12 cows, all second IRs. And it will be no surprise to you to learn that they were all NVL, all negative PCR and all negative on the high-specificity gamma.

I requested a second meeting with the CVO and her team, as we knew we needed to speak to someone directly who we felt could make a difference, but it was refused.

In the reply letter from the senior APHA team, we were told: “Limited resources and imperfect TB diagnostics mean that we may never be able to fully understand what is causing some of your cattle to react to bovine tuberculin in the skin test. So, this is also about adapting to ‘live’ with this issue and mitigating as much as possible the impact on your business and the taxpayer.”

We do not have access to the actual team who make decisions on testing. We do not know the reasoning behind those decisions. I wrote an impact statement detailing the mental strain our family was going through and the financial impact their policies were having on our business, but it didn’t make any difference.

James Robinson

We are trapped in a policy that is designed to find M.bovis. APHA has been indicating for at least two years that it is most probably not M.bovis. In fact, APHA staff have said that it is 99% certain it is not M.bovis, but they are still trying to find it using the same methods.

Our vet Kirsty, the NFU’s TB team and APHA field case vets have been trying to find a way through for us, but we are hitting a wall of silence from the TB policy team. Their default position is that if you can’t prove that it’s something else causing the reaction, then it must be bTB. And yet all the tests APHA have done and the ancillary testing funded by ourselves have pointed towards something else.

We have found MAH and MAC in water troughs and in slaughtered cows at post-mortem. No M.bovis has been found in environmental samples, in live cattle or in dead cows.

Virtually every cow we have lost has been in the milking herd, and there is absolutely no evidence that it is spreading cow to cow, due to the fact that heifers in the same airspace are all testing negative. The evidence also shows that the wildlife is clean, as all our neighbours are clear.

If APHA could tell us what they want and what evidence they need, then we could at least build a plan to move forward, because as things currently stand, APHA are forcing us into an endless cycle of testing and killing our cows, which is an incredible waste of taxpayers’ money, the agency’s time, our vet’s time and our finances.

A rough estimate is that it has cost our farm somewhere in the region of £150,000 over the three years. How many businesses would be expected to bear such a massive financial hit? Never mind the impossible pressure it is putting on our family, seeing perfectly healthy, rare pedigree cows being dragged up into the back of a wagon, all because the APHA cannot produce any better plan.

There seems to be little appetite to learn from our case. At the very least, it should be written up and used as an example of what could become much more common and obvious once M.bovis has been brought under control towards 2038, as is the government plan. We are sure our farm cannot be the only herd that this is happening to, but if it is, it will not be the last.

What we are being forced to do is insanity. Test, kill lots of cows, results all negative. Test, kill lots of cows, results all negative. Repeat again and again.

Like I said at the beginning: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

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