Experts are encouraging farmers to report and thoroughly investigate all cases of abortions and stillbirths to better understand disease prevalence and apply effective herd protection strategies for the future.

To integrate abortion reporting into the regular calving routine, the Ruminant Health & Welfare (RH&W) group has introduced new resources.

These resources include a flyer and an online hub featuring FAQs, all designed to reduce the obstacles to reporting abortions and submitting samples for investigation.

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These materials were developed in collaboration with experts from the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), Scotland's Rural College (SRUC), and Animal Health NI.

The flyer is intended to be printed for farm notice boards and saved on the phones of all farm team members to help boost the number of reported abortion cases.

Colin Mason, a veterinary investigation officer at SRUC's disease surveillance centre in Dumfries, noted that investigating abortion causes can enhance herd efficiency, protect staff, and provide valuable industry insights.

Mason said: “By asking farmers to investigate all abortions and stillbirths by sending abortion tissues and blood samples to be tested, farmers and vets alike will achieve better herd health planning outcomes by gaining insights into what is causing abortions.

“Once a pregnancy is established and particularly in the latter stages, the expectation is that a viable calf will be born at term. When this does not happen this is an ‘unforeseen event’ which should be investigated as part of the health planning process with your vet.

“This includes finding out the status of infectious diseases and identify the risk levels of zoonotic disease for your farm.”

Understanding disease risk is also crucial for the broader industry, especially with the current relevance of diseases like bluetongue (BTV-3) and Schmallenberg, both of which can cause late-term abortions, stillbirths, or deformities in calves. Therefore, investigating all abortion cases is critical to identifying any notifiable disease.

Collecting data on the causes of abortions and stillbirths on farms also contributes to national disease surveillance and helps identify virus mutations or emerging threats.

Mason emphasised the importance of understanding zoonotic disease prevalence, which is another key reason for submitting abortion samples to safeguard farm workers.

He explained: “Increasingly coming to the fore, are the disease risks of Q fever and Salmonella Dublin. Testing for them will help understand whether some of these diseases are active on-farm or passive on-farm.”

“From a worker, farmer or vet point of view, knowing a little bit more about the risks on-farm, and being able to manage that risk for anyone coming into contact with the herd is a positive action farmers can do.

“Submitting all abortion cases to be investigated is also going to find out the prevalence of brucellosis and improve brucella surveillance. This will increase the confidence in which we can say in the UK that we are free of brucella.

“Ultimately, the more you can find out about your animals by investigating these unexplained abortion losses, the better for your farm, your animals and the industry.”