VACCINATION has proved a crucial part of an overall sheep lameness control programme that has helped Borders' farmer, Robert Bradbury, reduce infectious lameness from 20% down to almost zero in his 750 ewes.

Fed up with what seemed a never-ending battle against foot problems seven years ago, he decided to tackle it head on.

Having seen drastic improvements in foot health, he is now convinced that effective lameness control is within the grasp of all sheep farmers.

"I had always been brought up with sheep and accepted that if you had sheep, you had lame sheep - I'd read articles about smart Alecs that had got rid of footrot, but now I believe you really can do it. Our lambs are doing well and the ewes are on all four feet," he said.

The turning point came in a particularly wet year, which saw lameness incidence in ewes and lambs escalate. Robert found himself continuously turning and treating sheep and running them through a footbath.

Despite his best efforts, problems continued to build.

"It was very time-consuming and costly, and it was frustrating as it was not resolving the problem. Lambs were not performing, this was a result of the ewes (their mothers) being lame, and consequently under-performing.

"Even scald in lambs was developing into footrot. It was probably adding two months onto finishing time and I thought there had to be a solution," he added.

Robert and his wife, Julia, run 550 Texel and Texel cross ewes plus 200 hoggs at Black Heddon, Lowick, near Berwick. They primarily breed all of their own replacements and tups with some Mule ewes and males bought in on occasion.

In 2007, the decision was made to vaccinate all breeding females and males with Footvax after scanning. Robert said the positive effects of vaccination were clear to see as soon as sheep were housed for lambing in March.

He also started to address other parts of the now industry-accepted five-point sheep lameness reduction plan (see panel).

This involved culling repeat lameness offenders, which are seen as a major source of infection spread.

"At the time (seven years ago), cull prices were good and it was an easy decision to make to get rid of repeat offenders," he said.