Given the veterinary perspectives on the potential threat of Bluetongue here in Northern Ireland next year, vaccination should become a priority for all ruminant farmers with breeding livestock.

The issue was highlighted at the recent AgriSearch Flock Focus 2026, held in Cookstown on Wednesday evening past. A gathering of 200 sheep producers were in attendance to hear specialist sheep veterinarian, Phillipa Page, relate the carnage wreaked on flocks in England, Wales and Scotland earlier this year by Bluetongue 3. And it is the Scottish dimension within all of this that will be of greatest concern to sheep producers here in Northern Ireland.

With Bluetongue infected midges now well capable of over wintering in large numbers throughout GB, it is almost certain that large numbers of them will be making their way to this part of the world during the late spring and early summer of 2027.

Treating Bluetongue is not a realistic option.. The only way to deal effectively with Bluetongue is to vaccinate breeding livestock before disease infected midges start to make an impact on the back of rising temperatures during the spring and early summer period.

So farmers have been warned: and the same point holds for those veterinary pharmaceutical companies manufacturing the required vaccines.

ew information on how Bluetongue impacts on sheep is becoming available. A case in point is the severe impact on ram fertility levels. It is estimated that 50% of rams infected by the Bluetongue virus will be affected in this way.

The effect that such a scenario will have on UK lamb numbers in 2027 has yet to be determined. But we won’t have long to wait.

Early lambing flocks will be scanned over the coming weeks, at which stage we will know the real consequence of Bluetongue on the prospects for the UK sheep sector over the coming months. Dealing with the disease effectively is an obvious priority.