A Journey Through Fetal BVD in Our Dexter Cattle ~ Series Part 3 (last)

This is the last leg of our Journey through Fetal BVD with our Dexter cattle. It is one that we have had six months to ponder. We have our thoughts from our side of the fence, but we have questions too. The word responsibility will crop up more than once. This is an honest attempt to define responsibility, moral and ethical dealings with people and wondering what role, if any, an association plays in a situation like ours.

This information came right before this article went to publish and we want to stick it in at the beginning. The cow Rad's Dorian and her calf have both been tested and both passed. He also stated that "several" herds have been tested, according to his vet.

We bought sick cattle. They were infected and resulted in Fetal BVD. We are responsible for buying them without health papers. We won't be doing that again. We are responsible for not having the vet out earlier and for not testing Brunie. If we had it to do over, we would have called the vet on the first calf that was blind. We would also have had Brunie tested before we buried him. We were not vaccinating our herd. That worked until we opened up our herd. Another lesson learned.

We basically think that "things happen". We have never blamed the seller of the cattle for the Dexter cattle being infected with the Fetal BVD. Not once. We believe his herd has been vaccinated, but not the herds and/or singles that come through for him to resell. What's the one thing that we are upset about with the seller? That he would not contact the other buyers that were there that day. We know of at least one calf that "would/could not get up" .. just like our Brunie. That calf died. Was it Fetal BVD? We won't know, because that buyer had no heads up before the calf died. We only knew of four buyers and we did what we could to contact them. But should that have been up to us? No, we don't think so. Our plate was full for six months coping with Fetal BVD in our Dexter cattle. That job was the seller's.