Compulsory Scrapie Flocks Scheme
A veterinary assessment based on epidemiological evidence will determine which holdings and flocks the measures will apply to.
Your local Animal Health Office will register your holding into the scheme. An Animal Health Veterinary Officer will contact you to assess your flock and discuss the the scheme with you.
The scheme imposes either a slaughter of all small ruminants present on the holding, or genotyping of the entire sheep flock. There are derogations for rare breeds to prevent in-breeding.
Where genotyping is carried out, those animals most resistant will be kept as breeding stock. Less resistant animals will be slaughtered for human consumption and those showing the least resistance will be removed from the holding and destroyed as Specified Risk Material (SRM). Compensation will be payable for animals destroyed as SRM.
Once the animals on your holding have reached the required levels of scrapie resistance, restrictions will be enforced on sale, purchase and breeding on the holding for a period of two years.
For further details see the Compulsory Scrapie Flocks Scheme Booklet.
Atypical Scrapie
Following the introduction of more rigorous surveillance with new, sensitive, diagnostic tests, there have been reports of what appears to be a previously undetected form of scrapie, termed atypical scrapie. There are some clear differences between the newly identified atypical scrapie and the classical strains of scrapie that are well documented in the UK.
It is likely in the future that compulsory measures, which are proportionate to monitor this disease, will be introduced and applied to holdings where atypical scrapie is confirmed. For further information on this please access the DEFRA website using the following link Atypical Scrapie
Further Questions and Answers on the Compulsory Scrapie Flocks Scheme are available on this website.
A copy of the UK’s re-notification of the CSFS State Aid under the block exemption rule for agricultural state aids (Commission Regulation 1857/2006) is available here. 