Archived News

19th September 2007
The test results on the cattle at the fifth farm show antibodies to FMD and during the post mortem, 10 day old lesions were found. The Chief Veterinary Officer is now urging cattle farmers to check their livestock twice daily. It has been taking the equivalent of one long 'man day' to check all the cattle once a day, so now we will have to have more people on this job. The cattle are in 15 different locations plus here at Manor Farm so I am working out a routine whereby all these will be checked twice a day.

18th September 2007
All farmers must REMAIN VIGILANT and check livestock every day.

The sheep culled last night have been confirmed as FMD positive, making a 5th positive farm (although some of these have multiple sites with livestock).

Cattle can easily be spooked by strange noises or in a stressful situation, a group of our cattle stampeded through a couple of fences some years back, when two Chinook helicopters passed overhead on their return from night training (having followed the wrong valley) - it took 3 hours, in the dark to retrieve the cattle from the local woods.

Well I heard from two local farmers today that a helicopter was used to cull some cattle last night, which seems crazy. If this is correct, no wonder the poor creatures were spooked. About 10 cattle escaped from one farm during the cull - where did they run to and how long were they on the loose? Our contact was not warned that susceptible cattle had escaped. Has this jeopardized the bio security of that area, given that farmers are trying to remain so vigilant? 

Wasn't there concern in August that helicopters could help to spread FMD and didn't farmers warn of distress to livestock on the ground from the constant helicopter traffic?

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