It’s been a year of great technical advancements for animal health management with new cattle pain relief released onto the market, but also increasing producer biosecurity obligations as the J-BAS extended deadline expired in October.
In March, Australia’s largest privately owned cattle producer Consolidated Pastoral Company in northern Australia undertook a new trial in husbandry pain relief.
The beef business utilsed an off-the-shelf anaesthetic spray, Tri-Solfen, during branding on its Allawah property in central Queensland and Auvergne Station in the Northern Territory.
The livestock pain relief product, Tri-Solfen, was used by Australian sheep producers since its official registration in 2008.
However, the spray-on anaesthetic and antiseptic product was only approved for use in cattle by the Australian Pesticide and Veterinary Medicine Authority during December 2016.
In October, a $3 million grant was secured to fund the development of a new biological product to treat two of the northern beef industry’s most significant pests, cattle tick and buffalo fly.
The three-year Probio-TICK project is aimed at developing a low-cost, chemical residue-free, microbial treatment applied to the hide of cattle to provide life-long protection against cattle tick and buffalo fly.
MLA’s health welfare and biosecurity program manager Jim Rothwell said the successful development of Probio-TICK could offer many potential benefits for the northern beef industry, including improved animal health and welfare outcomes plus a boost to productivity and profitability.
Meanwhile, animal welfare in Australia continued to evolve to meet changing community expectations through the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy.
At the seventh AAWS National Workshop on the Gold Coast in July, participants charted a roadmap for ongoing improvements in animal welfare, building on the foundations AAWS set as the most extensive collaboration of animal-related organisations in the country.
More than 125 delegates from around Australia attended the workshop, representing animal production, pets and companion animal organisations, animal welfare advocacy groups, research organisations, sport and entertainment groups, the education sector, veterinarians, and commonwealth, state and local governments.
A string of workshops were rolled out across the country to help livestock producers understand the new on-farm biosecurity plan required for the new property-level management of Bovine Johne’s Disease.
The deadline for completion of a biosecurity plan was October 1.