NATIONAL Milk Laboratories now
have a shiny new facility at Four
Ashes near Wolverhampton and a
group of vets and others recently
accepted an invitation to tour the
facilities where NMR director Ben
Bartlett guided everyone through
the many intricacies.
NML is the son, or daughter, of
National Milk Records (NMR). Some
5,500 dairy herds are milk
recorded each month,
accounting for 60% of the
cows and 65% of the
national milk production
At the Four Ashes site,
10,500 bulk tank samples
arrive each night for quality testing –
that works out at some 3.8 million little
bottles processed each year. The
outcome of these tests determines the
payment to be received by 99% of the
nation’s 11,000 milk producers.
Emphasis is on quality, not only of
the quality of the milk but the quality
of the tests themselves. Great care is
taken to ensure accredited accuracy.
Refrigerated vans, temperature data
loggers, barcodes, traceability, storage
and sample registration all lead up to a
nightly throughput with one shift ending as most people are hearing their
alarm clocks.
The work force of technicians and
others totals over 60 with the many
machines being supported by a team of
on-site engineers. If there is a power
failure the back-up generator kicks in.
Antimicrobial testing is by the
Delvo process, where no inhibition of
the bug in the plates indicates that no antibiotics are present. Test sensitivity is
a major talking point. There are many
other tests that can be applied to give
very different pass and fail
characteristics.
Research employs various tests and
the different antibiotics have a spread
of detection possibilities. With over 60
antibiotics from seven classes it is well
recognised that some products have a
greater likelihood of antibiotic residue
detection than others.
John Fitzgerald, secretary general of
RUMA (Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance),
succinctly laid out the issues
that are expected to change
the way antibiotics are
selected to be administered
to food producing animals.
Pressure is coming from
Europe to limit the use of
medicines that could allow
microbial resistance to pass
from animals to man. In
practical terms, every
veterinary surgeon and every
farmer is strongly urged to review their
use of medicines. It may be that there
will be legislation but responsible use is
a responsibility to be applied now.
Drawing on her experience as a
milk buyer and processor, Linda Clow
(ARLA) confirmed that the responsible
use of antibiotics needs to be
demonstrated by all parts of the
industry. With the ban on the direct
advertising of antibiotics to farmers, it
is anticipated that there will be closer
relations between vet and farmer over
the use of therapy.
Disease prevention programmes
will be supported by industry with the
aim of reducing the incidence of
clinical cases requiring treatment. Milk
that is contaminated by antibiotic has to
be disposed of.
If the milk remains in the bulk
tank, disposal is down to the farmer,
but there are some 30 milk collection
tanker failures each month. This is too
high.
The whole area of the use and
disposal of waste milk is an important
issue. The Environment Agency is said
to be unhappy about land spreading
and the costs of incineration, loss of
vehicle use, additional testing and
manpower come back to the farmer or
his insurers.
One positive move forward would
be for veterinary surgeons to become
involved on behalf of the farmer and
the industry when an antibiotic failure
is detected. Currently there is no routine formal notification to practices
or involvement.
Having set the scene with some of
the current concerns, the tour took in
the additional testing services that are
available within the NML laboratory.
These can involve bulk milk or
individual cow milk, blood and tissue,
depending on the relevance, and
include BVD, Lepto, IBR, Neospora,
Liver Fluke and Johne’s disease
together with microbiology for
pathogen identification.
A review of the options and
services are available at www.nationalmilklabs.co.uk. Tissue
samples from calves within the first
week of life, to accurately identify
persistently infected animals with BVD
virus, called Tag & Test, provide a
rapid result on which to base control
options.
Within the website lies a veterinary
section. Individual herd data held by
NML is available to practices with
consent from the farmer. An increasing
volume of interaction between
veterinary surgeons and the laboratory
is anticipated.
One of the current developments is
for quarter mastitis cases to be recorded
by the herdsman and given to the milk
recorder. This information is then
incorporated into the Interherd +
charts as support for herd health
programmes.
