17.2.05

Belfast Telegraph

700 cattle set for BSE cull on Ulster farms

By Michael Drake
mdrake@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
17 February 2005

Almost 700 cattle will be culled from 200 Northern Ireland farms because of BSE.

They are the cohorts - born on or after August 1996 of parent cattle found to have had the disease.

The operation is part of a managed transition towards lifting the Over Thirty Months (OTM) rule which prevents animals of that age entering the food chain.

Before the OTM rule is replaced by testing and the export ban can be lifted, the UK will be required, like all other EU member states, to cull the cohorts of BSE cases.

Cohorts are defined as cattle born within a year of the birth of a BSE case; or reared with a BSE case.

It is anticipated it will take two to three months to complete this exercise.

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