Did you know this??!!

I just had my Dept Of Ag guy out today for him to collect some samples for CWD testing......anyhow, he informed me about some of the new absurd regulations we have to follow as if there were not enough already.......everyone knows about the 2 for 1 cwd rule they came up with where if you have a deer that is to far gone for CWD testing you have to kill to perfectly healthy animals from your herd and have them tested in it's place.....crazy!! today my Ag guy tells me that he now has to physically go and inspect each individual animal on the farm and confirm their tags.....meaning they either have to be put down or run through a chute systems so he can gather this information this includes all fawns as well!! Once he does that you are good for three years.......this is unbelievable.......over the top if you ask me.......but our beef industry which supplies us with the food we eat have little or no regulations.....this is just not right!!

ddwhitetails said:

I just had my Dept Of Ag guy out today for him to collect some samples for CWD testing......anyhow, he informed me about some of the new absurd regulations we have to follow as if there were not enough already.......everyone knows about the 2 for 1 cwd rule they came up with where if you have a deer that is to far gone for CWD testing you have to kill to perfectly healthy animals from your herd and have them tested in it's place.....crazy!! today my Ag guy tells me that he now has to physically go and inspect each individual animal on the farm and confirm their tags.....meaning they either have to be put down or run through a chute systems so he can gather this information this includes all fawns as well!! Once he does that you are good for three years.......this is unbelievable.......over the top if you ask me.......but our beef industry which supplies us with the food we eat have little or no regulations.....this is just not right!!

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Did you know that you also have it easy? How about Ny rules.. We have the same cwd rules comin on! We have ALWAYS had to do a herd check EVERY year and yes they have to check each tag. I kinda get around that by use of the rfid buttons and the micro chips in the body and very calm deer. They are read by the handheld reader and i can walk through my herd with my reader in hand and do a herd check. Hope that makes ya feel a little better!

Wow...and if ALL you have is top shelf deer...already ''weeded your garden'', that would really be tough to go shoot 2 or 3 healthy deer to replace a death that has already cost you plenty.

Talked to a guy the other day and he said his state required you to kill 3 healthy animals to replace the one that died and was found too decomposed to test.



A guy is just going to have to be much more diligent on checking your pens/deer more regularly. But the reality is that your bound to miss one once in awhile if you have any amount of deer at all...unless you're absolutely married to your business and never ''leave the farm''.



We had 32 degrees 2 mornings ago. Hope others got some of that cold to kill those midges.



Better days ahead Dennis...and you KNOW that!

No Mike....it doesn't make me feel any better....not even a little.......These Regulations are out of hand.....they make no sense....and are just another way to try and squash this industry. Not to mention another added cost to the farmer who is already struggling with the falling deer prices and escalating feed costs.......nothing at this moment is going to make me feel better. And trust me Mike we don't have it easy here in PA........maybe you have it harder.....but we don't have it easy by any means.....

Dennis,

Did they give you any indication when they were going to notify us of these changes?

This is certainly becoming more and more ridiculous!!!! If all these rules were based on real circumstances and justifiable, that would be one thing, but based on nothing is just BS!!

Thanks for posting!! We'll certainly be making some phone calls tomorrow.

Todd it has been published I guess......he gave me a copy of the 100 page report to look at today.........It is just very disheartening .......to the point where the deer farming is starting to not be fun anymore....and it's a shame cause I love my Whitetails.......to the point that I would never want to be in the position to have to pick two animals to be killed for basically nothing because I may have not seen a sick deer die and get the sample in soon enough......what the heck.......that doesn't even seem like it should be legal........things got to change...enough is enough already!!

Doesn't seem legal at all!!

I agree something definitely must change.

Guys, You have the 2 for 1 rule wrong..



The rule is in the Program Standards section.

That means it is optional for the state.

Here is how the rule reads: Section (5.9) if an animal meeting surveillance criteria dies on the farm and is not tested FOR ANY REASON, the owner can make up the missed sample by testing two other animals (meeting surveillance criteria) originating from the herd.

These animals could include:

1. Cull animals slaughtered by producer/owner.

2. Animals hunted or harvested on a separate facility owned by the same producer.

Exceptions to a missed sample testing may be granted by the Administrator due to special circumstances such as animals that die during a natural disaster, mass losses from an infectious disease outbreak, or from a known zoonotic disease where a sample collection would pose a public health risk.



Owners would have to complete these makeup samples within the following 12-month period without affecting the herd status, after which a penalty could be imposed by the approved State in consultation with APHIS.





This means you can use market "cull" does to make-up for a missed test, the whole thing is that it is optional for you. The key word is "CAN". You don't have to do this at all if you don't want to. If I miss a test in my state I lose 90 days on my status. You can miss 4 tests a year, but your status just won't move ahead that year. The other thing is you lose a lot of deer at once (EHD outbreak), you may be excused from testing, if your vet. determines an outbreak.



I heard about this 2 for 1 rule as being a "bad deal", but if read the rules, I think it is actually a good deal for us. It's on pages 22 and 23.



Gary Olson

Gary I hope you are right....however, I heard this come right from the horses mouth (the Dept. Of Ag Guy) and they are the ones that enforce the rules here for us in PA.....so he is either miss led which is another disturbing issue all together if that's the case or this is how they are going to do it in the state of PA. like I said, I certainly like what you are saying....However, for now....until I can be sure ....I got to believe the one who I have to answer to in this State......

ddwhitetails said:

No Mike....it doesn't make me feel any better....not even a little.......These Regulations are out of hand.....they make no sense....and are just another way to try and squash this industry. Not to mention another added cost to the farmer who is already struggling with the falling deer prices and escalating feed costs.......nothing at this moment is going to make me feel better. And trust me Mike we don't have it easy here in PA........maybe you have it harder.....but we don't have it easy by any means.....

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It should. You have every 3 years. We have every year!!! If i were you i would be keeping a sample of your cwd tissue also. One to the vet,One to the state and one stays with you untill your report comes back. Without a backup test and they say you are positive like they did in ohio. They will make it easy and depopulate your deer for you!!! TRUST NOBODY!!!

The rule just came into effect 8-23-12. I will bet you that most of the district ag. inspectors haven't seen or read the rules yet. I'm on our states cervid advisory committee and had to testify last week at the capital for our state assn. We opposed some of the language in our new states rules, got some changed some not. Just go to USDA and pull up the rules, it's 67 pages long. Call Shawn Schafer, he will verify this. Maybe Shawn will come on and comment.

Anyway, I agree we have to many rules and restrictions. Good Luck.



Gary Olson

Gary thank you for your comments ....I will be sure to study the new changes as it is apparent that the ones I have to report to have not......Mike, as I said, your bad fortune with the regulations of your State do not make me feel any better....yes it stinks you have it worse.......but it doesn't make the fact that we are getting hit with more regulations any better. I do agree about the cwd samples ......I think I read that somewhere before on another thread........wish I would have remembered that today.....

Our BAH rules in our state were last changed 15 years ago. When I testified last week to the Judge (mediator) , we where shot down by the elk breeders!! The Elk breeders association testified against us. They said they wanted 100% testing. We were shocked!! They testified after we did, so we couldn't rebut their statements. Why are we testing market animals? Our market animals bring between $100 and $200 at most for meat prices, yet the slaughter plants ( having to comply with the law), charge us $40 a head to do the CWD test. These are perfectly healthy animals, so why test them? Even the final APHIS report says on page 22, " the scientific knowledge we have suggests that CWD is not highly infectious". On page 23 it states "thus, movement of animals under part 81.3 already presents a low risk of spreading CWD, even without considering the low risk associated with the pathway of transportation through a State". This fee they charge us is not fair. It's one thing to test animals that die in a pen to see what it dies from, but to test perfectly healthy animals? When up to 30-40% of the value of our market animals get charged against us, for a low risk disease, it is not only fair, but puts the venison market at risk of being none existent. With this charge, it makes the economics of raising venison for meat non-profitable. This is a disservice to the consumer that is looking for a low-fat, low-cholestral, heathy meat. Many heart patients need this product, or they can't eat meat. We need to stand up and fight this 100% testing rule. It's to bad the elk breeders aren't on our side!



Gary Olson

ddwhitetails said:

I just had my Dept Of Ag guy out today for him to collect some samples for CWD testing......anyhow, he informed me about some of the new absurd regulations we have to follow as if there were not enough already.......everyone knows about the 2 for 1 cwd rule they came up with where if you have a deer that is to far gone for CWD testing you have to kill to perfectly healthy animals from your herd and have them tested in it's place.....crazy!! today my Ag guy tells me that he now has to physically go and inspect each individual animal on the farm and confirm their tags.....meaning they either have to be put down or run through a chute systems so he can gather this information this includes all fawns as well!! Once he does that you are good for three years.......this is unbelievable.......over the top if you ask me.......but our beef industry which supplies us with the food we eat have little or no regulations.....this is just not right!!

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Couldn't you synchronize it with your TB testing?

Steve, I will be able to do that since my testing is due now....but for those that have just tested their herd for TB...they will not be so lucky they will have to have their herd checked again by the dept. Of Ag to confirm the tags on each of their animals.....now whether they will synchronize it with their TB date after that remains to be seen....I would certainly hope so.......I'm sure there is a lot that needs to be figured out by the Dept. of Ag. Since these changes are so new ......let's hope they will work with us as much as possible because this is just another major inconvenience to us all....including the Dept. Of Ag.

G O Whitetails said:

Our BAH rules in our state were last changed 15 years ago. When I testified last week to the Judge (mediator) , we where shot down by the elk breeders!! The Elk breeders association testified against us. They said they wanted 100% testing. We were shocked!! They testified after we did, so we couldn't rebut their statements. Why are we testing market animals? Our market animals bring between $100 and $200 at most for meat prices, yet the slaughter plants ( having to comply with the law), charge us $40 a head to do the CWD test. These are perfectly healthy animals, so why test them? Even the final APHIS report says on page 22, " the scientific knowledge we have suggests that CWD is not highly infectious". On page 23 it states "thus, movement of animals under part 81.3 already presents a low risk of spreading CWD, even without considering the low risk associated with the pathway of transportation through a State". This fee they charge us is not fair. It's one thing to test animals that die in a pen to see what it dies from, but to test perfectly healthy animals? When up to 30-40% of the value of our market animals get charged against us, for a low risk disease, it is not only fair, but puts the venison market at risk of being none existent. With this charge, it makes the economics of raising venison for meat non-profitable. This is a disservice to the consumer that is looking for a low-fat, low-cholestral, heathy meat. Many heart patients need this product, or they can't eat meat. We need to stand up and fight this 100% testing rule. It's to bad the elk breeders aren't on our side!



Gary Olson

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What reasons did the elk breeders have for 100% testing?



If your state didn't test 100% what stops other states from not leting you ship animals to there state?

Our BAH director wants a test on our slaughter animals even if they leave the state.



Rumor has it, some velvet dealer told them that if we tested at 100%, the South Korean velvet market might open up for them.



They testified exactly the opposite way that Shawn testified. The elk breeders aren't even in step with NADEFA!

You do know what velvet means to the elk breeders right. Before cwd velvet was over $100 per pound. It droped to as low as $6 and is finally up to $30. If the Korean boarder opens the prices will sky rocket. Whats good for one isnt good for everyone.

Well I am sure they are happy to see no unity between us and the Elk farmers.....it all falls back on CWD being blown way out of proportion......just my opinion!!

G O Whitetails said:

Rumor has it, some velvet dealer told them that if we tested at 100%, the South Korean velvet market might open up for them.

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Never believe the velvet dealers,they change their demands at will.They've been playing this game with the velvet pools for decades.All they care about is keeping the price for the grower down.



I don't think 100% testing is going to help open any new markets,not whilst there is the smallest risk of this disease jumping international boarders.



I do believe that Korea has already had positive CWD deer,so it might be a case of closing the gate once the horse has bolted,but most likely just screwing the growers down.



Any thoughts on how CWD made it to Korea from Nth America?



Cheers Sharkey