The change from grazed grass to a conserved winter ration is one of the most abrupt dietary events in the farming year, and silage feeding fallen stock collection is a predictable consequence of getting it wrong. Acidosis, bloat, listeriosis and clostridial disease all cluster in the fortnight either side of housing, and the animals lost are usually the ones in best condition. Martlands is a family-run, DEFRA approved business in Burscough offering licensed fallen stock and ABP collection across the North West, and October is consistently one of our heaviest months for cattle and sheep losses on newly housed units.
This article looks at the feed-related losses that arrive with the housing period, what the ABP regulations require of you when they do, and how to keep collections and mortality records aligned through a period when several things are happening at once.
What Goes Wrong at the Feed Transition
Rumen microbial populations adapt slowly. A herd moved from autumn grass onto a high-starch buffer ration inside a few days will suffer sub-acute or acute ruminal acidosis, and the acute form kills. Bloat follows the same pattern where a rapidly fermentable ration is introduced without adequate effective fibre. Both conditions produce animals found dead rather than animals seen to be ill, which is why the losses feel sudden even when the cause has been building for a week.
Listeriosis is the other classic silage disease of the housing period. Soil contamination at harvest, a poor seal, or feeding from the shoulders of a clamp where the pH never dropped properly all allow Listeria monocytogenes to survive. Sheep are particularly susceptible, and big bale silage with punctured wrapping is the usual source. Clostridial disease, including blackleg and enterotoxaemia, rises where feed changes rapidly and where soil is disturbed. In every case the outcome for the farm office is the same. An animal has died and the disposal clock has started.
The Twenty-Four Hour Duty and What It Means at Housing
Under the Animal By-Products (Enforcement) (England) Regulations 2013 fallen stock must be collected within twenty-four hours of discovery, and burial and burning have been unlawful in the United Kingdom since 2003. During the housing transition stock are checked more often than they are at grass, so discoveries are made earlier in the process and the window is easier to meet. The risk is administrative rather than practical. When several jobs are running at once, a dead ewe moved to the back of a shed can be forgotten for two days, and the record will show that.
Fallen cattle and sheep are Category 1 material because of the specified risk material and TSE controls that attach to ruminants, and our Category 1 ABP collection operates under Animal By-Products Licence No APB/CCN21/373/8002. Cattle over forty-eight months are sampled for BSE, and because Martlands is a DEFRA approved sampling facility that is done as part of collection rather than as a separate arrangement.
Post-Mortem Evidence and Why Prompt Collection Matters
Feed-related losses are worth investigating, because the animal that died is telling you something about the ration the survivors are eating. Where your vet intends to carry out or arrange a post-mortem examination, arrange that before collection rather than after, and tell us the animal is being held for examination when you book. Decomposition destroys the diagnostic value of rumen contents and liver tissue quickly, particularly in a warm shed, so the useful window is short. Once the examination is complete, the carcass is collected under the same licensed route as any other.
This is one of the few situations where the disposal decision genuinely affects the farm’s next management step. A confirmed acidosis diagnosis changes the ration for four hundred other animals. Guessing does not.
Storage and Vermin Through the Housing Period
Housed units concentrate feed, bedding and stock, and that concentration attracts rats and birds. A carcass held in the open yard until the collection vehicle arrives is a direct biosecurity risk to the animals inside the building, and a straightforward assurance failure. Fallen stock awaiting collection must be held so that scavengers, birds and other livestock cannot reach it, and so that fluids cannot run into a drain or watercourse. A covered, hard-standing point with vehicle access is the practical answer for the whole winter, and our guidance on safe on-farm storage of fallen stock covers how to site one.
Records That Match Across the Housing Period
Mortality during the transition should appear in three places that agree with each other. Your own herd or flock records, the holding register, and the Commercial Documents issued at collection. Every Martlands collection produces a Commercial Document recording the category of material, species and number of animals, date, vehicle and receiving premises, and bookings placed through the KoLeCt system timestamp the report itself.
Assurance assessors look at that alignment closely, because a mismatch is the easiest thing in the world to find. Farms carrying an unusually high autumn mortality figure are not penalised for the figure. They are penalised for being unable to explain it. Our note on fallen stock record keeping sets out how the three records should read together.
Coverage Through the Housing Weeks
Housing happens across our whole service area within a few weeks, and volumes rise sharply. Routes across Lancashire fallen stock collection and into the North Wales fallen stock collection area run through the whole period, and the M6, M58 and M56 corridors keep response times workable even when demand peaks. If your unit expects a concentrated housing week, tell us the dates and we will plan capacity around them.
To book a collection or set up an arrangement for the housing period, call 01704 776977 or use the contact us page. Our farm and fallen stock collection service offers same-day availability, and as NFSCO members we can take collections through the national scheme.
