Page numbering starts again now.

1st April

All OK (for now). The ewe is still accepting little Fred (misnamed because she's a ewe lamb) I keep forgetting to say that I got the date of the first piglets wrong. Not today, the 6th. Write later.

Little Fred with her big foster brother.

Now it's after 1.00am and so strictly speaking it's tomorrow. Sorry everybody. I've just come down from the lambing shed. Here's something I wrote up there, but I think I'm too tired to correct any typos as I go along.

It's nearly midnight and I'm writng this sitting on the straw next to a gimmer who's lambing. She's a bit nervous, poor thing, and is obviouslyy uncomfortable. She keeps backing into the wall. Her water bag has burst. I'm going to give her a little while to see if she can manage on her own but I've a feeling she'll be a problem. I've been up here since supper, more lambs being born, and some needing supplementary feeding. The larger of W12's tiny lambs has developed watery mouth (sometimes called rattly belly). It can kill a lamb, so he's had antibiotic and I've tubed some milk into him as he won't be able to suckle for a while.

I came up oin a seething rage and now I'm sitting here feeling very tired and very sad and very very deeply calmly angry. There are ewes coming up and sniffing at me, wondering what I'm doing with this notebook, and the sound of chewing close to my ears is drowning out the sound of the Easterly wind that has got up outside. W88 is pawing at the ground a bit, and then standing still. She doesn't feel quite right and I can't quite see why I feel that.

I keep thinking that if I go to sleep, to a proper long deep sleep, I'll wake up and laugh that I could have been so taken in by a bad dream.

There's a ewe lying stretched out against the hurdle on one side, and another is having a good rub of her backsidee against the hurdle on the other.

I heard this morning that FMD had reached Camworthy Water -- it wasn't a farm I know. I phoned a farmer I know up there and heard that tomorrow all of their dairy cows will be killed because the infected farm is their neighbour. There is a lane with high hedge banks between the two farms and their cattle are inside in sheds. There has been no contact. This is madness. by the same rules, they should have slaughtered all th eanimals on the farms round Jasper's ( at South Petherwin). It's four weeks now since they were infected and has no-one at MAFF noticed that no other farms in the neighbourhood have been infected? Have they wondered why? At Jasper's they set a 24 hour watch on the carcasses so that no vermin could spread the disease. It was diagnosed quickly and the diagnosis was acted on quickly. I've heard that at Camworthy Water they were investigating the infected farm for several days and I heard yesterday that the vet who authorized th eslaughter at Jasper's has been reprimanded for acting "too swiftly". Her swift actions, and those of Mr Jasper in setting his "fox watch" saved us from being infected from that source. We'll get it from the East instead. Why can't MAFF look at the case here and say "yes, that's where we've gone wrong, " instead of this mindless slash and burn. Ask a firefighter and he'll tell you that slash and burn only works when it is done in time and efficiently. They're not just destroying irreplaceable breeding animals, they're destroying lives.

I had to stop in the middle of that while the ewe had the first of her twins. She was quite uninterested in it for the first few minutes. Now we are waiting for the second one. The water bag came out with a rush so it won't be long.

Just born, W88's twins

Now I'm inside. I'll go and have a final check and go to bed. The twins are fine. My feelings of things not being right are probably just this whole situation. We're bringing new life into the world, and the rightness and order of it is being wrenched apart. I can't write any more now. I want to try and make you see how wrong it is. And I meant to sort out these pages so they don't take so long to download and put up some of the emails I'm getting. Maybe there'll be time tomorrow.

I am not a farmer, just someone who loves the English countryside and is desperately unhappy at the way that the epidemic has been handled by the Government. There has been unforgiveable suffering imposed upon both animals and those whose livelihood revolves around the care of them and/or the land on which they graze. I despair at the incompetence and lack of clear decisions, and I cannot bear to watch another TV news item showing a bereft farmer losing his/her entire stock as a 'precaution' only to have the carcasses lie in the open for days awaiting disposal.
I have immense admiration for farmers, who fight to preserve their industry against naivety, contempt and greed, and I am saddened by the increasing numbers of advertisements I see for the sale of farms or entire herds.

One of the things I'm missing, free-range hens and cats. (We've had no eggs since the second day we shut the hens up).

4th April

Whitethorn (otherwise known as blackthorn!)

The ITN site readers asked me some questions. My answers are on http://www.itn.co.uk/interactive/your_say/farmer.shtml .

If you don't want to wade through my acres of prose, ITN are cleverly picking out the main bits and making it sound quite good. on http://www.itn.co.uk/interactive/footandmouth/diaryfront.shtml (or go to www.itn.co.uk which is worth going to anyway and look on the interactive pages)

We are frantically busy with lambing just now. I am writing things on bits of paper but it takes time to type things out. Lambing is going well. Just terrified that someone less than 1.5 km away gets foot -and-mouth. If they do the new rules state that our pigs and sheep are definitely killed and maybe the cows or maybe not. Someone hasn't done their sums. more on that later. I must go back up to the shed. Gertie is definitely nesting now too.

But first I must just copy this from Anthony Gibson (our local NFU representative) in todays local paper. Wouldn't it be wonderful if our leaders in Westminster could have as much courage to admit their mistakes:

.".......Much of what I wrote last week about vaccination .... was misleading and mistaken. The only excuse I can offer is that the misinformation which has been put about on the subject, by the Ministry of Agriculture especially, but also by the European union, beggars belief. Never can such a vital scientific issue have been shrouded in such a fog of misinformation and obfuscation.." If you live somewhere where you can buy a copy of theWestern Morning News, do so. It is a paper that understands about farming. The farming editor, Carol Trewin has been voted Britain's best farming writer. Is she read by Mr Brown and his civil servants?

Up in the lambing shed. I'm sitting watching sheep and trying to catch up with what I didn't say yesterday. I did write something down but I can't find it.

We had some really good triplets in the afternoon. only spoilt by the ewe not having any milk to speak of. We mixed up some powdered colostrum, but it's not the same. We tried fostering one of them onto a single in the evening, but it didn't work. Now its real mother won't take it back.

Earlier I was sitting on the straw next to a ewe in labour, leaning back against the wall, and listening to the racket as James and Bill did the feeding. The ewe kept getting up and looking for her lamb (something they do do in labour) and then turning to me and licking at my hands and sleeve, very tickly. I had to climb out of the pen before she adopted me.

James went down to cook supper while I stayed up here with a gimmer that was lambing. We have a portable TV up here for news, teletext (and the rugby, when it's on). I was watching the news whilst I was waiting. I have been haunted ever since by the sight of a little lamb dragging itself through thick mud. It is inexcusable. They were talking as if the only solution were to cull the poor things under the welfare scheme. There are already more than a million and a half animals booked into the welfare scheme, and that's only animals booked in by farmers who have had time to get the forms and do all the paperwork. There will be at least three, and I reckon more like ten, million animals to be disposed of in this way and that's on top of the millions in the contiguous cull scheme. Mad. It's mad even if you are only thinking of the practicalities of it. If you are thinking of animal welfare it is barbaric --indeed downright evil.

That little lamb is probably dead by now, choked on mud, together with thousands of others. The weather last night was cruel, driving wind and rain. The Government answer to lambs drowning in muddy fields is "kill them!", but it isn't even possible to put them out of their misery quickly. They have to wait in the long, long queue. The RSPCA wrote to the Armed Forces Minister John Spellar to ask if the armed forces would provide tents for shelter for sheep that are lambing and I know that Anthony Gibson made the same request. Agricultural students have been sent home. I am sure that many of them would have been happy to volunteer to help the army. Why, why, why are the government getting away with it? It is their responsibility. They could muster the resources.

While I was watching the news I was watching the gimmer. She didn't notice the second lamb when it slid out. It was still in it's bag. If I had not been there it would have suffocated without ever breathing. It can happen when a ewe lambs alone.

10 minutes after birth.

Can anyone tell me why uninfected animals in restricted areas (and they can be many miles from an infected farm) are being paid for by tax payers money and dumped, rendered or burnt? I am not talking about animals like the poor drowning lambs, but about animals ready to be eaten, pigs sheep and cattle. I have heard that the supermarkets won't buy them. Not because of any risk from FMD but because at the start of this crisis they forward-bought cheap meat from abroad, much of it not raised to our welfare standards, and some of it from countries where foot-and-mouth is endemic. The bill to the tax-payer for this wasted meat will run into millions. The cost to the environment is incalculable.

Do people know, that at the same time, lorries are driving past these restricted farms bringing animals from "clean" areas to be slaughtered in abattoirs in the restricted areas. Abattoirs that may have brought the infection into the area in the first place.

I was interupted a few times whilst I was writing that. One of our older ewes, M32, 7 years old, went into labour, her water bag just burst on the straw. I quickly got the rejected triplet and rolled it in the fluid. M32 started to lick it before her own lamb was born. We had a bucket handy and there was a wonderful rush of fluid as the lamb was born, so the poor triplet was 'marinaded' in it. M32 assumed she had had twins and licked them both. Some hours later she sniffed at her foster lamb and head butted him into a trough. We had kept the bucket of fluid and the poor lamb got another soaking. It seems to have worked. But what a start in life for a very confused little lamb.

No.3 with her hoof on her lamb

."..The millionth animal consigned for culling, the thousandth infected farm identified...and the disease has, according to the government's chief scientist, turned the corner: vaccination is for the moment to be abandoned........the Ministry's figures have been re-jigged no fewer than three times in the past four days and it's getting increasingly hard for us to unscramble what's really going on...." Jon Snow from Channel 4 news.

"...There has been so much information and misinformation about vaccination that I don't know what to think but surely the powers that be must consider it for breeds such as Herdwicks which are unique to Cumbria otherwise they will simply disappear and our well trimmed attractive fells with them ! I was irritated to hear on the National news tonight that the foot and mouth epidemic has "turned the corner" , whose leg do they think they are pulling ? To me it has spread its tentacles out towards the western lakes and the south lakes too . " Email from Cumbria.

I feel so angry with the contiguous cull policy I don't think I can be very coherent about it. I am too tired now. It has been a very happily sheepy day. lots of lambs and most doing really well. here is what I wrote in an email sometime after 2.00 am this morning.:

"I will never never accept that my sheep should be killed. Nothing is logical, nothing makes sense. Our cows and sheep are in the same shed. The ministry vet when he came round said, 'don't worry about the sheep,. you'll see it in the cows first'. Then why kill the sheep? If the cattle are not infected neither are the sheep.
If this contiguous cull is really necessary then all the farms round Jasper's should have caught FMD. If contiguous animals are safe to go in a land fill site because 'they are not infected' , why were they culled in the first place?"

We have been very busy with lambing. We're more than half way now. The calves have been weaned from their mothers. The cows do need a month or two's rest before they calve in June and July. We divide off a section of the shed with hurdles and the calves and cows can still see each other and lick each other a bit. Last year, I remember, there wasn't any fuss at all. This year Astrid nd Buttercup have been bellowing and setting all the others off. They make the sheep sound quiet. Before we started farming I thought that lambing just meant being there when the ewe lambed in case she needed help. That's the easy bit. There are always lambs needing attention. We have one little tiny one who has had to have electrolyte solution for the last 3 feeds as it was scouring badly. One that was a breach birth this afternoon has been very weak and its mother has been milked and the milk tubed into it. After birth with all of them it is vital to make sure that they have a proper drink from thier mothers.

Another totally random picture of lambs!

5th April

"Scary how the country seems to have been so efficiently mesmerised and manipulated."
from an email this morning.

It's a wet horrible day and I am feeling very depressed about the "new policy" for tackling FMD. But more about that later.

Gertie has had ten piglets! They are gorgeous. I have just been with her, saying "you clever, clever thing"" and "oh you little darlings", over and over. She is lying flat out, grunting softly and happily and these little things, with silky satiny coats and dark shiny eyes are climbing over each other to suck at her teats. Wonderful. I'm just downloading some pictures and I'll put them up. (A bit anxious about the computer as it wouldn't start to begin with, making very strange noises). James woke me just after 5.00 am as he thought I'd like to know Gertie was farrowing. Even for all of you reading this I was not getting up then!

Watching the news last night was deeply depressing. The Chief Scientist and Professor Anderson from Imperial College are wrong. They are basing their advice on computer models of the disease that have the wrong information programmed into them. It is alarming seeing supposedly very clever men , scientists, being so unscientific. They can see that the disease is spreading from farm to farm, yes. They are recommending that diseased animals are culled in 24 hours, yes (and wasn't this the recomendation in the first place?). They are saying that all farms that share a boundary with the infected farm should have theri animals killed, NO NO NO. Of course if you kill all the animals in an area the disease will be stopped. Why not look at why it is spreading to neighbouring farms, first? It is spreading because of contacts through gates and fences, carrion taking infected pieces of carcass, possibly in the smoke from bonfires, and from large numbers of infected animals being left for days to excrete the virus into the air. Why not tackle those conditions first? There is evidence here on the ground that where all those criteria are dealt with properly, the disease does not spread. It is almost as though they believe in Black Magic. It is a virus. The virus needs to make contact with the animal. Scientific fact.

The virus will spread and they will kill more and more animals and when the infection finally dies down they will say "it was because we were so tough." and I fear that a lot of people will be fooled. John Tribble had his cows killed no, wrong way of putting it, John Tribble and his brother had to help kill his own cows as there were only two people sent to do it, six days ago. He believed it was necessary to stop infection spreading to his neighbours even though his animals weren't infected ("The Ministry said they had to go"). His animals had been checked every other day by a Ministry vet for weeks (it's very easy to spot in cows). His neighbour who kept sheep (it's difficult to spot in sheep) hadn't been inspected once, and called the vet when he saw suspicious symptons. He had FMD. So John Tribble's cows that had had no contact and were uninfected are dead. His other neighbour's sheep which could touch noses with the infected sheep are still alive. They will be killed, but by the time they are, they will probably be showing signs of the disease and their neighbours on the other side will have to go. Does this make any sort of sense to you, so far?

John Tribble sprayed his poor cows with disinfectant and waited for someone to come and remove them. He is still waiting. He has telephoned and left messages and waited for a reply. He is still waiting. His cows weren't infected so it doesn't matter. They are dead and are safe from being infected by the rotting bodies of his neighbour's sheep that are still lying where they were left a week ago, without even having some token disinfectant poured over them. Yes, ProfessorAnderson and Chief Scientist (what is your name, David King?) your firewall will work. You need to shield the virus from spreading with millions of uninfected bodies and broken lives. It will work. Some where on your computer models isn't there room for a little common sense?

Quote from Anthony Gibson again:

"As it turns out, you would have had a better chance of succeeding in an appeal against one of Stalin’s edicts than you have of winning exemption from the contiguous cull. Now that would be understandable (just) if the justice was universally rough. But there have been several examples (Monkleigh being the most obvious) where sheep on a farm which was not technically contiguous have represented a much greater disease threat, but have not been taken. Result: unnecessary slaughter of healthy cattle, and spread of disease, leading to further unnecessary slaughter and so on."

7th April

The European Parliament in Strasbourg passed a resolution on Thursday calling for the immediate vaccination of all susceptible animals in regions where disease outbreaks have occurred.

'This should not be simply a 'vaccination to kill policy', but should serve to protect livestock. They furthermore recognised the wrongness of the mass slaughter policy and called for it to end. No return to long term prophylactic vaccination was envisaged. The resolution was opposed by British Labour and Conservative MPs!.......' http://www.efrc.com/fmd/60019.htm

I'm afraid I was forgetting that some of you would have checked this site already for news. Sorry! After supper, I went to check the sheep, and had planned to just put up a note saying I was going to bed. I was feeling really tired. I've been angry and sad and anxious all day. I've spent a lot of time on the phone to lovely people who shouldn't be having this happen to them.

I spoke to someone who had their much loved dairy cows shot on Monday and who had had the first bodies (not all) removed today. She heard Tony Blair comparing slaughtered animals to those which would normally be turned into sausagres, last night. She couldn't understand the smugness and ignorance of it.

I listened to the John Peel programme as I was getting up (rather late). There was a very moving audio diary from a woman in Anglesea whose business was suffering badly. She was having to lay off most of her work force and it was very painful. She had a friend whose sheep had been slaughtered. She said that one of the worst bits for her friend was that she had some lambs she was bottle-feeding. She went to give them their last feed and was told not to as they were about to kill them and it really upset her that they had to die with their stomachs empty. Her voice was breaking as she said that bit. Then we went on to the next item, and John Peel said something on the lines of "we're tired of seeing farmers crying over animals that were going to be killed anyway". He said it as though he could assume that most of his listeners felt the same.

I realised very suddenly, and I must be very stupid not to have realised it before, that that is what Blair and his scientist think too. Blair seriously thinks that dairy cows and breeding stock are just that, "stock", no different to the stock in a shop, and as replaceable. I know we have only been farming for a short while, but this year most of our ewes are from our own breeding. The lambs are healthier and stronger. We have two heifers (Daisy and Primrose) of our own breeding, that will calve in June. They are not replaceable. Our bullocks will go for meat at 30 months and our lambs between 6 months and a year. The fact that I know they are going to die then does not mean that I don't delight in seeing them enjoying the life they have. And I take pride in the fact that we are producing good food on land that grows good grass and has an abundance of all the wild life that goes with grazed fields. Death is part of life and life goes on. This slaughter is tearing that apart.

Last night, I went up to the shed at midnight, the moon was glorious, behind scudding clouds, and there was the red glow of the piglets' heat lamp (which they don't lie under) coming from the pig stye. I looked in and Gertie was stretched out, snoring, with her piglets beside her, and Gussie snoring in unison with her from the pen opposite. The shed was full of little peaceful noises, a lamb bleating, a mother answering, the cows breathing and groaning and snuffling, another little outbreak of bleats, then quiet. I knelt in a pen milking the mother of the sick lamb, and wondered if those politicians and experts would think me a fool to be spending so much wasted effort on less than 1% of my lambs. The lamb was still very weak, and I tubed a syringe full of milk into it. We have been feeding it a little every 3 hours or so. It died this afternoon. It never did have much of a chance, but we couldn't have just left it to die without trying.

It's after midnight and I've just come down from the shed. There's a strong, very cold, wind and the moon is so bright you can scarcely see the stars. I didn't need to use the torch up the track. All is peaceful up there.

I didn't have a sleep as planned earlier this evening because I was so angry I stopped feeling sleepy. I never realised before how useful anger is. It's amazingly energising, I can feel it like a great engine revving up inside me.( At least, I did earlier, when I was writing emails!) I had checked my emails and there was an answer to one I wrote to Ben Gill at the end of March, in response to his statement "the NFU has warned that vaccinations are not the solution". Basically, they were repeating the same old lies. Mr Gill said in this weeks 'NFU Business', "we consider every option to eradicate this scourge" and produced a highly missleading graph with no mention of the thousands of farms with uninfected animals that will be wiped out. Have you noticed that MAFF are not publishing a list of the farms that are having their animals slaughtered in the contiguous cull? One wonders if MAFF and NFU head office's brief is merely to reduce the headline number of infected farms regardless of the fact that the total number of slaughtered animals will be greater.

It is a fearful responsibility to know that if your farm is infected your neighbours will go too. In some places that could mean 20,000 animals (as it nearly did in one place, where, fortunately, a second vet was able to insist it was a misdiagnosis). This brave new policy, tough and decisive and "essential" for eradicating the disease, is impossible to implement properly anyway. They came with 50 bullets to kill 4,500 pigs on one farm, and they haven't finished killing there yet, a week later. Bodies are still lying on farms, days and days later.

On one farm, animals killed because they were contiguous, the bodies are slowly being moved. "They must be killed in case they are infected". And to the farmer, "you can't leave the farm until all the bodies are gone, and the farm disinfected". And to the public who are protesting "The carcasses are not infected, it's quite safe to move them down into Cornwall to burn them".

I only read yesterday's paper today. A farmer, a woman in her sixties, has already spent eight days alone on her farm with a policeman on the gate, whilst her animals were tested. Three days after the all clear her sheep were found to have it after all. Now she has been shut on her farm for another week, again with a policeman on the gate, because, though they took the infected sheep away, there are some cows lying dead in a field a mile from her house, and nothing can be done till they are removed.

I must go to bed. When lambing is finished I'll be able to think straighter.

8th April

Thanks, Cathy. I must remember to hang on to that. I came in here in an inchaote rage and I have just been sitting quietly looking at that text and praying. I do feel more peaceful and more focused. Thanks, God!

We are calling her Baa Baa for obvious reasons!

I'm sitting here with a smile on my face, after reading Debby's verse:

Mr.Blair, Mr. Blair
You say that you care
Yet you slaughter the sheep
and the pigs

Mr.Blair, Mr. Blair
You say that you've farmed !
Only 1 % harmed
Just the ones you
might eat...
so no problem,
just push a button-
DELETE

Mr. Blair, Mr. Blair
FMD , how does it travel?
From the sheep & cattle
only those with
cloven hooves

Mr. Blair , Mr. Blair
It's obvious to farmers
Devil politicians
leave a hell
on earth.

when you see a lamb being born, it is difficult to believe that it can live.

just born

just a minute or two later

another few minutes

I stopped taking pictures and made sure it had a drink.

13th April

Back on the 10th April, I wrote that we did not lamb our shearlings. James went to feed the hoggs last evening and found one hogg had a dear little lamb. She doesn't look old enough to be a mother, but it is a good little lamb. We were a little late taking 3 ram lambs out of the flock of lambs in the autumn. They were taken out exactly 147 days ago (gestation period for a lamb). Hopefully, they were taken out before they could do more harm. The hoggs haven't been dagged so there was nothing obvious to indicate she was in lamb. We do feel rather stupid!

I've spent a lot of the day on the phone. There are too many stories of incompetence. On one farm, a Ministry vet diagnosed FMD in a bullock. The vet was wanting to authorise slaughter of the animals on that farm and on the six neighbouring farms. The farmer insisted on a second opinion. He had to fight for it. It was a misdiagnosis. Another farmer has twice had vets driving into his yard without disinfecting their cars. On a culled farm, lorries have been loaded with bodies, and then, nowhere for the bodies to be taken, they've tipped them out again. They are lighting a big fire outside Holsworthy, a town of several thousand people, by the main road to Bideford, not far from the hospital. It will burn for at least ten days. They've put plans in place in case the town needs to be evacuated because of the pollution. There are more than 110,000 bodies lying rotting and picked at by birds, foxes and rats, on farms in Devon. Farmers cannot leave their farms till the bodies have been disposed of. And the word from the scientists is "kill faster, kill more". It's Good Friday today, the first Good Friday when I haven't gone to church.

I keep hearing people say, "farming is only 1% of the economy". Down here it is more like 17%. In Devon, if Exeter and Plymouth are discounted it must be even more. Look at the Downing Street Newsroom web site. None of the stories were about foot-and-mouth. I was surprised to find that the only reference to foot-and-mouth was in relation to tourism and opening waterways. £8,000,000 to eight coal mines. No mention of the contiguous cull policy. How can they just ignore it, when Tony Blair says it is his top priority.

I don't think I want to talk about killing just now. The video of that man shooting sheep and lambs running round a field left me shaking. I've just heard on the radio that MAFF were saying it had to be done "because the sheep had escaped from the farm". Any farmer knows that it was not necessary to do it like that under any circumstances. I have heard other stories about animals being chased round fields. Unfortunately they only take notice if it is videoed.

I have been feeling very dispirited today. Talking to other farmers, they are feeling the same. It is going on so long and there is no end in sight. The worst of it is, that when a friend is needing comfort you can't go round and give a hug and sit and talk. How many farms will be left when this is over?

I'm going to bed.

The green dot means a fostered lamb.

From Cathy:
We can celebrate over this weekend with the knowledge of the awesome and wonderful work that Jesus Christ did for us, the sacrifice he paid in taking away the shame of our sins - rejoicing to know that He is not dead - our Redeemer lives - He is not dead but is very much alive - He is Risen - Hallelujah - one phase of a song comes into my mind as I write this - "I know that My Redeemer lives" Praise God.

".....MAFF had already
started to train suitable people to assist in the vaccination programme( AI
operators and similar). I was really beginning to think that this nightmare
was almost at an end when the Govt scientist in charge of the epidemic
appreared on the local TV programme and said that the Food Standards Agency
would label our milk as "produced from vaccinated animals "! You canimagine
my family's reaction to that and the majorityy of other farmers too I have no
doubt. I know Tony Blair would sacrifice his own grandmother to win an
early general election so a few Cumbrian farmers sacrificed for tourism and
votes won't matter but that takes some swallowing ! They don't label
Argentinian beef with the label "product of a country which is endemic with
foot and mouth" do they ? What a two faced unpatriotic lot ! All milk is
pasteurised so what does it matter ?
I have had two friends on the telephone desperate because their herds were
scheduled for slaughter because of the new policy of slaughtering all the
neighbouring farms animals.
One won a reprieve when NFU pointed out that even if he developed F& M he
wouldn't infect anyone because all the neighbouring farms had gone anyway !
The other was much worse a young friend of my son who lives near Blackpool. A
neighbouring farmer's son had been working on another farm which had gone
down with foot and mouth, presumeably travelling from home so MAFF were
proposing to cull the entire village as it was a new case in the area . Poor
lad was near to tears, I didn't know what to say to him except contact your
MP, NFU and your vet and a solicitor! We are living desperate times.
I am just keeping on praying for an exceptionally warm ,sunny Easter to
weaken the bug!
God's blessing on you..."

The lamb born on the 12th when it was 5 hours old.

1. Professor King (the "Chief Scientist") says vaccination could help to contain the disease.
"As well as protecting the cattle it would reduce the potential level of infectivity in the area,"
2. Nick Brown said vaccination was under review because of the "unique features" of the outbreak but he renewed his promise to consult with farmers before coming to a decision.
3.It is thought Prime Minister Tony Blair and Mr Brown will have to decide on the issue within two weeks.
4.The scientific committee's paper also considered the use of "firebreak" vaccination around areas of infection, but said it was not a "foolproof" method. "Suppressive vaccination may not bring an outbreak under control as quickly or as effectively as a fast cull of infected premises and the areas surrounding them," the paper said.
5. A Downing Street spokesman said the government's crisis committee would next meet on Monday.
6. Responding to Professor King's report, he added: "It does point to the usefulness of vaccination in complementing the cull policy and in protecting the very valuable dairy herds that will soon be leaving their winter sheds."
7.On Friday, army officers told Mr Brown that half a million doses of vaccine and the military resources needed to support the policy were already available.

16th April

"We are all told science is rigid but suddenly, in the space of 10 days, certain parts of the science seems to have been turned on its head." Ben Gill, today.

Scientists can be rigid, but science is always open to new research and information. Is Mr Gill really saying that he had thought the Chief Scientist was infallible? Somehow I had thought the NFU's stand was one taken because of vested interests, not through sheer stupidity.

I had felt quite hopeful when I heard that extraordinary statement. But no, the NFU is not making a U-turn. He went on to say that he had been advised (by another infallible scientist) that it would be better than vaccination if cattle were to remain in thier sheds for another month. Here is a man representing farmers and he doesn't seem to know that cattle were housed early last autumn because of the constant rain, and many farmers have already run out of forage. He has a list of 50 questions that needs to be answered apparently. What are the questions? As a member of the NFU I would like to know.

Another NFU man was on the news saying that farmers are against vaccination. What farmers? How many are members of the NFU and how many have been consulted? And how many of those have been given the information that surprises Mr Gill so much? And would any of that make any difference anyway? Mr King, the Chief Scientist, in one breath says that vaccinated cattle "should not go on to spread the disease. So as well as protecting the cattle vaccination would reduce the potential level of infectivity in the area.” and in the next breath he is dismissing vaccination as being other than a very limited option.

What does it feel like, I wonder, to have had your healthy cows killed and then to hear Mr King?

Or to have had your healthy sheep, grazing nowhere nea rthe boundaries of your farm, killed and read on the MAFF site "Airborne spread from infected sheep is not thought to be of major significance in this current outbreak."?

As for the politicians. "To dither or change your mind half way through is going to do more harm than good," said Mr Brown during the early days of the crisis. At the time, his choice of tense seemed to be a grammatical slip. Now, it is beginning to look deliberate. (from today's Telegraph)

It's so good to be able to escape from all that. I've just come down from the shed. There's one gimmer with a bursting udder, who's crossing her legs and hanging on (not literally, any of you who are wondering about sheep). It's cold and clear and the stars are wonderful. There are lovely snoring noises coming from the pig stye as I go past.

This afternoon, when I was out with the dogs, I lay down on the grass to take this picture. I put my nose down and could smell Spring. The wind was icy, but the earth was stirring, that indescribable smell of grass growing and something else, just alive.

These are the oaks we can see from our kitchen. There should be children playing around them and climbing up onto the platform in the branches. The roots of these oaks go down to where the spring rises that provides all the water for the house and farm. I look at them every day, and see the light changing on them, and the turning seasons.

We are at the stage in lambing when the problems start happening. We have 3 ewes with mastitis. Only one of them is bad, but we are having to supplement the feed of 2 lots of twins. Three of the lambs have slight orf. Orf is a real danger now, as some of the vets used by the Ministry have never seen it and have mistaken it for FMD. I know of at least one farm and its neighbours that have been culled because of orf.

By next week we must get the ewes and lambs out in the fields. "The sheep will be taken regardless" keeps repeating in my mind. Is there any point in being careful?

19th April

I've just written a couple of paragraphs on vaccination only to have my computer tell me that my programme has done something "illegal" and it's all been wiped out. I'd felt quite pleased with what I had written. Start again.

The news today has been full of vaccination and the farmers' resistance to it. I can understand the reluctance of farmers to trust the Governments change of plan, when the Scientists now in favour of it have been so vehemently against. But the NFU is playing straight into the Government spin doctors. hands. They can say that the Government is having its plans to save the animals blocked by greedy farmers, though if you look on the MAFF web site, they are not proposing more than a very limited vaccination programme; " vaccination of the cattle should minimise what could otherwise be a significant increase in the number of new cases in May, thereby reducing the number of cow carcasses requiring disposal............This is not so much to contain the spread of infection, though it will have some effect, but to protect vulnerable animals, and to help with the logistics of cull and disposal. We do not recommend a vaccination programme for sheep or rare breeds. We are neutral on vaccination of animals in zoos." All sheep and pigs in the vaccinated zone will be slaughtered and vaccinated animals will not be allowed to move out of the vaccination zone for 12 months. What is to prevent the Government changing its mind again and having all vaccinated animals slaughtered?

It is difficult to see what they mean by saying that it is " to protect vulnerable animals" and to reduce "the number of cow carcasses requiring disposal" but not to "contain the spread of infection" .

My computer has just wiped out all I was doing after this. What was I saying? Basically, that though I'm in favour of vaccination I am very anxious about the limited version that is now being proposed, especially as it would mean slaughtering so many sheep ("low value" animals). I am feeling extremely protecive of my sheep.

I have a number of documents for you to look at, which I will link from here.

The Elm Farm Vaccination document.
The Soil Association proposal.
The NFU's 50 questions.
My correspndence with Malla Hovi, Research Fellow, Organic Livestock Research Group, Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics Research Unit, University of Reading.

I need to sort out my computer. more tomorrow.

20th April

My computer's been out of action and I've been trying to reload everything onto it. It's been a useful distraction.

It was good to hear the Government' s Chief Scientist (is that an official title, I wonder?) saying on the radio last night that FMD is now fully under control, and that the backlog of carcasses was almost disposed of. The NFU bulletin last night said "The number of carcasses lying dead and rotting on farms in Devon has increased by 15,000 today to 167,000 (roughly 37,000 cattle, 128,000 sheep and 3,000 pigs). This is a disgraceful situation - heartbreaking for everyone involved and posing an ever increasing biological hazard."

My computer is now fixed, except for picture editing, but I've been sitting over it for too long. I will catch up tomorrow, and answer emails then too.

It's been a lovely bright sunny day, and I could almost pretend it was all over. I am feeling more hopeful that this will continue to be a really dull diary! (I shouldn't say that).

21st April

It's been too lovely a day to feel too anxious. I've been trying to pretend that everything is normal. I've even been doing some gardening. I've made a start, but the weeds have been leaping ahead, while I've been preoccupied. The smell of the earth is the smell of growing. The birds are singing more loudly every day and green is spreading over the hedges and woods. The robin in the shed gave up building his nest at the top of the stack (just as well!) and started building another nest further down. It's been another blessedly dull day.

The piglets are growing well. They are wonderful time-wasters. They aren't very good at standing still to be photographed.

At the same time, I can't really pretend. Too many people are living with rotting bodies on their farms, and waking up to silence instead of the lowing of their cows waiting to be milked. That silence must be terrible. Too many people are fighting the contiguous cull, only to have MAFF moving in to the slaughter. One farmer will have his case heard in court on Monday. Half his herd were killed last week, before he realised that he had the right of appeal. The living cows are having to walk past the dead ones lying in the yard on their way to be milked. The NFU bulletin says that it will be 16 more days before the disputed burial site near Petrockstowe is ready. then, "If all goes to plan (!), it should be operational on May 7, in 16 days time. It will be taking 8,000 carcases a day, so that even if the backlog of 174,000 carcases does not grow between now and May 7, it will not be cleared until the end of May. We regard that as totally unacceptable and will continue to press the Government to treat the situation as an emergency and do whatever needs to be done to move the vast majority of the carcases within days rather than weeks." But they are still killing healthy animals, so of course the backlog will grow. Why isn't the Environment Ministry moving in? Where are the local Government Health Inspectors? There will be carcases rotting on farms for 6 weeks.

Ben Gill wrote a letter to NFU members on the 19th, in which he says. "The NFU has firmly supported the Government's strategy for tackling FMD; that is the slaughter of confirmed cases within 24 hours and the slaughter of vulnerable animals on neighbouring farms within 48 hours. This is a tough but correct approach. And the clear evidence is that this strategy is effective (see graph)" The graph is the MAFF one that only shows the 'infected' farms, and not those culled, and is hence totally misleading.

But our NFU office in the South West says in today's bulletin "The contiguous cull will also be reviewed at a meeting of the Government's scientific advisers on Monday. We, and the veterinary profession in Devon, remain firmly of the opinion that only sheep and obviously exposed cattle on neighbouring farms should be taken, with any other cattle being kept under cover and under close examination." I would argue against the killing of all the sheep too. Hundreds of healthy cattle have been killed, and more were killled today. And Ben Gill, removed from it in London agrees with the slaughter even when his officers here where the bodies are rotting do not. I wish I could pretend.

Read http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,253-115876,00.html for an article by Libby Purvis which argues against the cull far more eloquently than I can.

BaaBaa is now loose in the pen with the other ewes and lambs. We had been letting her out for longer periods each day, and shouting at Vera each time she attacked. None of the ewes is noticing BaaBaa now. All the other lambs are well.

We are longing to get them out in the field. We will have to soon.

I've been trying to find out from MAFF what the official line is on Farm holidays. Apparently there isn't one. Farms can have what visitors they want, according to the woman on the MAFF help-line. But the MAFF fact sheets are very stern about disinfecting all visitors. It doesn't make sense.

22nd April

Another ordinary day! I'd be pleased except it feels so unreal. It hasn't helped that it's been cold and very wet. It did brighten up this evening, but the rain in the morning was heavy and depressing. The only good thing was that the lambs were in under cover. Lambs don't mind the cold but they find the wet really difficult.

James has had enough, he says. He wants to wake up and find it's all over. I wish. We're both really tired of it. We want to get on with farming properly, and not feeling that certain fields are out of bounds. And I feel really bad about the cats. I do go in and talk to them but I feel too guilty to enjoy their being pleased to see me.

Tigger in happier times. June '99. I have a series of pictures of Tigger, all asleep.

So they've finaly woken up to the fact that the bonfires might be dangerous! There has been no testing of the bonfires by the Government officials, either as to human health, or to spreading the virus. There are major enviromental problems with burial too. MAFF says that " the disposal difficulties have been exaggerated", but admits there's "a problem" in Devon. There are now 175,000 bodies to be disposed of, and they aren't publishing figures for the farms they are waiting to cull. I am just hoping that it might occur to them that killing millions when there is no way of disposing of them is possibly a mistake.

There are reports today of FMD being in the deer population. A vet up in Cumbria has found a dead deer with symptons of FMD. MAFF have tested 9 deer apparently and not found it, so that's alright! The British Deer Society is recommending that the Government authorises a restricted cull in infected areas in the close season (which started last month) so that proper tests can be carried out "The results of such research would allow future policy decisions to be made based on proper scientific evidence rather than conjecture. If no infection is found, it would curtail wild speculation. It would also greatly increase confidence among farmers and the public that one potential vector for the disease could be discounted." For myself, I am desperate to know whether it is safe to use our fields down by the woods.

The cows in Slade. April '99. They should be out there next week.

I have been going through our visitors book for the Barn. A friend typed it out for me recently (it's not the same without all the drawings!). I've been going through it putting initials instead of names so I can put it on my advertising web site. It's been making me feel sad and even more unreal. I enjoy our visitors and I miss them. I get a real buzz out of seeing people arriving wound up and tense and then visibly relaxing over a week or a fortnight." Wet, windy but wonderful" was a typical comment! We have applied for planning permission to convert another building into a one bedroomed place suitable for anyone in a wheel-chair. I had been hoping to be getting quotes and going ahead with it by now, but we can't have anyone in to get quotes from. You might have gathered that I'm feeling frustrated and fed up. I just want to get on with things.

23rd April

“The support of the farming community just isn’t there.” Mr Brown on vaccination.

We're still in limbo. MAFF's figures look good, down to an average of 16 cases a day, from a peak of 43. What they aren't letting us know is the number of culled farms. It must be at least 40 a day, probably more, if they are keeping to their targets. The NFU has played right into the Government's spin doctors' hands, on the question of vaccination. Blair can now pose as the saviour of the animals who is being stopped by 'wicked farmers'.

irrelevant picture of Gerttie's piglets. They're growing fast.

Dr Paul Kitching from the Institute for Animal Health at Pirbright was interviewed on Channel 4 on Saturday night. I missed it and have just come across a transcript. He questions the validity of the "very seductive graphs " that the epidemiological modellers have used. "and if there isn't good data going into a model, one has to question the value of the data coming out.............The alarming thing is how it seems to have influenced policy to such an extent."

Look on the MAFF web site. An interesting piece of information has just appeared. It's not anything that will surprise you. In fact it is blindingly obvious. It's just it's not something that MAFF seems to have considered before. "The virus can be conveyed on the feet and feathers of birds and can be excreted by them after ingestion of infected material. There is no evidence that birds can become infected - their role, if any, is as a carrier. Crows and seagulls are likely to pose a greater risk than other birds, particularly if they have access to infected carcasses."

Oh, "particularly if they have access to infected carcasses." Do you remember Mr Brown, weeks and weeks ago, saying that bodies lying on farms were unpleasant for the farmers but did not increase the risk of spreading infection? Just this afternoon a friend who farms next door to a culled farm was saying what an exceptional number of seagulls she had seen (25 miles from the coast), flying down to where they had had a fire next door and flying off with "bits of something".

I am getting bored with myself going round and round repeating the same things about mismanagement and misinformation etc. Oh just one more thing. Napalm. I can't remeber if I mentioned it on my diary, but we sent an email to the NFU on the 23rd March, quoting an article in the New Scientist. We heard Mr Meacher in parliament saying he would consider it, then later on the news he said that he 'hadn't been aware' that his department had already rejected the idea..

Back to the farm and sanity. It's been a lovely day. It feels like spring. Every day is greener. Looking at photos from last year, we already had apple blossom. Things are later this year but they're coming. You can see the fresh green on the apple trees. Friends have been telling me about seeing swallows. I haven't seen any yet. Something to look forward to.

One dairy farming friend has put her cows out. They had finished their silage. She had felt like us, very reluctant, but says that she felt better once they were out. Their milk production has gone right up now they are eating grass. We will put ours out very soon now.

We will start having visitors again in June. I must write to everyone coming this summer and let them know that they probably won't have the freedom to wander over the farm that they can usually have. Maybe it will all be over by then?

24thApril

I won't write much now as I'm feeling really tired. We've had some horrible heavy rain today, and then the sun came out. We've got electric fencing up in Plat ready to put the sheep out. We'll worm them tomorrow (we get permission from the Soil Association to worm them at turn-out ) and they'll go out the next day. If it's dry.

It was brilliant news today that MAFF had withdrawn their case to kill Christopher Baldwin's cows. But he still has half of them lying dead in his yard. He broke down in front of the camera. It has been a nightmare, complete hell for him and his brother, and of course it's not over yet. More farmers are fighting this iniquituous contiguous cull. Small holders on Anglesey have won their fight to save small flocks of sheep (including one of 60 Lleyns). The NFU in Wales has called it "an unwelcome precedent" and said "There have been many farmers on the island who have had to sacrifice their livestock for the good of farmers elsewhere. We don't understand why these people should be excluded from that." I don't understand the NFU's attitude. Where is the logic in slaughtering healthy animals? The owner of the Lleyns said "The science was all wrong. They were clean, they didn't need to be culled. Maff has gone mad with its culling, it's killing everything in sight." A ministry spokesman said: "Because of the location of the sheep some considerable way from susceptible animals these sheep are unlikely to be in danger of foot and mouth and we have concluded that it is not appropriate to press for slaughter." So why were they trying to slaughter them in the first place and why are the NFU in Wales objecting? Madness.

From today's NFU bulletin: "Deflating carcasses: MAFF have changed the way they count the number of carcasses awaiting disposal. The total number of carcasses lying on farms in Devon appeared to fall by 63,000 to 99,000 overnight. This is not due to use of napalm or the work of a battalion of soldiers, but reflects a change in MAFF's definition of "animals disposed of". Previously animals were only counted as disposed of when they had been completely burnt and the fire died out. Now, carcasses that have been moved to disposal sites will be added to this list. Even discounting the new definition, MAFF are still claiming to have disposed of 25,000 sheep and 6,500 cattle in the last 24 hours. Which surprises us."

Another example of MAFF madness, incompetence. A neighbouring farmer from over the valley has telephoned to tell me about a MAFF fact sheet 12. that he received in the post a day or so ago. It hasn't been sent to us. It is entitled "the humane destruction of sheep", and gives permission to a farmer to kill a sheep on welfare grounds. If the farmer is to use a captive bolt (the proper way to do it) he must be a licensed slaughterman. This document then says that he doesn't need a license to use "a rifle, pistol, or shotgun". My neighbour is furious. He has been telephoning MAFF to complain. It is totally unacceptable to try to kill a sheep with a shotgun, and pistols are illegal. MAFF told him that the Fact sheets that they send out to farmers are contracted out and they don't write them! They obviously don't read them either. Maybe that's why they didn't know how to control foot and mouth.


The piglets are growing visibly every day. Here they are trying to eat my boots again.

25th April

"MAFF makes King Herod look compassionate"
Anthony Gibson on the local BBC News tonight.

He was speaking about MAFF's decision to go ahead and kill the calf, Phoenix. For those of you who don't know, Phoenix is a 12 day old calf that survived for five days in a pile of carcasses next to its dead mother after slaughtermen apparently missed her. Phoenix presents no risk to other livestock, as there are none nearby, but MAFF say it would go against their policy to leave her alive.

40 vets in Dumfriesshire have written to Tony Blair saying ".......we are now seeing a savage attack on what livestock remains in the north of England and the south west of Scotland...... Animals are being slaughtered without rhyme or reason......This scorched earth policy will undoubtedly result in the eradication of foot and mouth disease but it may be a pyhrric victory."

It is now in the news that MAFF are admitting that birds can spread the virus. What have they been doing all this time? There are more than 2,000,000 dead animals and they are just now doing tests on the pyres to see if they might be spreading the disease. Then the Chief Scientist was on the news too, saying with a little smile, and easy geastures.."the outbreak will continue to bump along until about mid-July to early August."

MAFF are using a different system for deciding the figures of carcasses waiting for disposal, as Anthony Gibson said " It doesn't do their credibility much good frankly...these huge lurches in figures....All sorts of funny business going on inside MAFF with the various systems that they use for collecting and publicising information". The figures are looking much better. Almost everyone I've spoken to in the last two days has said "things are improving". I've grown very cynical. I'd rather wait a while . For more about MAFF see this link to the Guardian

As I write this I'm listening to the news. Downing Street have announced that the fire break policy of the contiguous cull is to stop. It feels like a huge weight lifting. But what are the farmers feeling who have had their animals killed in the contiguous cull? Some of them will have been killed today. It's only a brief announcement, no details yet.

It's been another mixed day. Rain and sun. There was a wonderful light this evening, with piled up clouds, some black and then a great band of glowing white with pink edges. Then the new moon was brilliant. We've been talking about how we will have to start living a more normal life. We have no choice about putting the animals out in the next few days, and when we do, some of our precautions will become redundant. The lifting of the contiguous cull threat will make that move much easier. At the same time, there are still many more farms being infected in Cumbria, and we are still waiting for the results on a farm in Chudleigh. We will still barr the farm land to visitors, but we could put hurdles up at the bottom of the drive, so we could have visitors coming to the front door, maybe. It's a rather frightening thought, but we can't live in the equivalent of an air-raid shelter for ever.

Megan looking over the stable door.

26th April

"Affected premises: Number of premises on which animals have been or are due to be slaughtered - 5884". taken from MAFF's web site today.

Buttercup.

"The House will be aware that the numbers of confirmed cases continue to fall, week on week. From the highest point of 43 cases per day, on average, in the week ending 1 April, the average number of cases has fallen to 16 in the week to 22 April". Mr Brown in parliament today.

"2,136,000 animals slaughtered, of which 218,000 remain to be disposed of.
384,000 cattle, 1,645,000 sheep, 106,000 pigs, 2000 goats slaughtered.
152,000 animals awaiting slaughter. " from MAFF's web site today. And-----(*provisional)

Daily average of animals slaughtered
For week ending Sunday 22 April - 32,000*
For week ending Sunday 15 April - 61,000
For week ending Sunday 8 April - 62,000
For week ending Sunday 1 April - 53,000
For week ending Sunday 25 March - 34,000
For week ending Sunday 18 March - 20,000

There had been 1480 infected farms, at the time today when I collected these figures

It would be interesting to compare the average number of cases for the week ending 25th March, when the figures of animals slaughtered are very similar. "The case for a vaccination programme becomes less compelling as the number of daily confirmed cases and the weight of infection in the hotspot areas continues to fall," Mr Brown added.

It is difficult not to feel optimistic even though I don't trust the politicians. The sun has been shining this morning, and we know that the virus doesn't like the sun. Brown is still talking about culling healthy animals " We will continue to kill all animals which are dangerous contacts. That will include animals on a significant number of neighbouring farms and beyond. The change does not affect the culling of pigs and sheep on so-called "contiguous premises" ". But Christopher Baldwin won his court case. The grass is growing. It's an optimistic time of year!

Professor David King, Government Chief Vet: "It would be foolhardy to let go on a policy that is working, because it may then run out of control again." Without the cull, he warns, there will be a second wave of infection, and even more carcasses on the pyres . (from the Channel 4 web site). We cannot relax properly.

We're going out tonight, a friend's birthday. It feels strange. We did go out last week. Reading through what I'd written, I realise my computer problems stopped me writing about a lovely evening last Thursday, when our daughter Mary and her husband spent a night up the road with my mother-in-law and cooked us a delicious meal. I then had a good morning out and lunch and a long talk with Mary before tackling the computer again. It felt wonderful to have a proper time out. We are gradually ventureing out into the normal world!

Our little hogg. The lamb's doing well.

With the animals going out, we won't have such good arguements to use against MAFF. The last few weeks we have felt they were more dangerous than the disease. So we will be able to let the cats and chickens out. That will be really, really good. The cats and chickens love it in the sheds with the animals but ignore them when they're in the fields.

It's a funny mixture of feelings. I still feel very distrustful of both MAFF and the disease. At the same time there is an almost desperate longing for normality. And, practically, we've got to carry on farming. Next month we should be cutting the first silage. We'll need a contractor to bale it. In June the sheep will need shearing. What are all the farmers going to do about shearing? Will the normal gangs of New Zealanders, going from farm to farm, be here this summer?

Time to go!

I tried to put this up before we went out but couldn't get a connection to freeserve. We've had a wonderful meal at a restaurant caled the Tinhay Mill. We were the only guests. They would normally be busy, but FMD has badly affected thier business. Anyone local who wants an extremely good meal followed by a choice of 50 malt whiskies, we would recommend it. If yu're not local, they do B & B. We almost forgot about FMD for a while.

27th April

Last night, when we came home, the new moon was just setting and the stars were brilliant. It's been a beautiful spring day. The air felt soft for the first time this year, that lovely softness with the smell of growing almost intoxicating. The hedges are bursting into leaf, and the bluebells and campions are just beginning. We have never had such a good crop of dandelions. One good thing about dandelions, their deep roots do bring minerals up to the surface, and they help to aerate the soil. The forcast is bad for the next couple of days so the animals are in until Monday. Then everything is out. I can't wait. It will be so good to see them all out. At the same time I'm very nervous about it. Plus the ground is still very wet and the cows will make a dreadful mess to start with.

Dandelions in Slade, looking towards the Barn.

The first of this year's calves are due in a couple of weeks. Daisy and Primrose will both be calving for the first time. They were AI'd to an Aberdeen Angus so that they would have easier calving for their first calves. We'll put them together in the orchard near the house so we can keep an eye on them more easily.

The new contiguous cull policy is now on the MAFF web site. It isn't much of a relaxation at all. Sheep will still be "taken regardless". Some cows stand more of a chance. If they're lucky. If the MAFF vet passes your "bio-security". If they were grazing in the right place on the 1st February. (Can they incubate the virus for 2 months?) David King, the powerful Chief Scientist (I am sorry to insult true scientists by calling him that) said "...If I have a farm where cattle have throughout the period of the disease been kept 200m from the boundary of an infected premises, that farm would be culled." He obviously hasn't been out into the countryside in Devon, where 200m can mean several 10ft high hedgebanks lying in between.

"Prof King also revealed that an infected farm was, on average, only likely to infect one in six of its neighbours with the virus. He said the chance of infection spreading to a neighbouring farm was 17%. The chance of it then spreading to a further neighbouring farm was just 3%....Livestock on around 4,000 farms with no sign of infection has been slaughtered...But Prof King insisted that the policy was the right one." From yesterday's WMN . Does that make any sort of sense to you?

Phoenix has been a bit of a red herring. As the Sun newspaper said today : "...it was a heaven-sent chance for Blair ....... to demonstrate his deep concern for all things bright and beautiful. Sparing the ickle moo-cow is a cynical attempt to make us all forget the complete hash the government has made of the foot-and-mouth crisis. But as far as Blair is concerned, foot-and-mouth was last week's story.....". The spinners of Downing Street hope that people won't notice that the killing is still continuing.

There have been reports of dangers to human health from the pyres of carcasses but Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, a junior Health Minister, told peers last night that medical consultants had been notified of potential public health risks from burning animal carcasses by the Public Health Laboratory Service as long ago as March 1. (from today's Guardian).

Dr Paul Kitching, whom I wrote about on the 23rd, (when he questioned the validity of the data going into the computer models that were justifying the cull), is leaving for a job in Canada next month. A Government spokesman said that of course he had been asked to stay, but this was denied by "someone extremely close to him". Did I say I felt very distrustful?

James checking a lamb

In spite of worry and tension and not being able to relax, we are feeling happy. The animals are mostly well. (There's one poorly lamb and a couple of sheep with mastitis and we've had more orff than last year - but I put that down to having them inside for so long). All the farmers I've spoken to, say that even if the worst happens they will not give up. We certainly won't. There is a strong feeling that when this is over things will have to change. And not in the way Blair seems to want, fewer, larger farms, but more viable small farms with more consumers caring where their food comes from.

28th April

I'd almost finished writing today's entry, and the programme shut down without warning. I had been feeling pleased with doing it in good time and now I'm not sure if I can remember what I had written! Oh well. It's a minor irritation.

It was a lovely morning. I had been wondering how I could persuade James to let the cats out, since they would be out in a day or so anyway,when the cows and sheep go out; when he came in saying "I couldn't stand it any longer. I've let the cats out". Apparently they were very reluctant to leave their shed, hesitating for a long time in the doorway. Since then, Scratch and Mamow (2 of the feral cats) have been following me around. I have been trying to take a photo of them, but Mamow has been like one of the piglets, rushing up to me as soon as I get down to take a picture. Tigger is still cross. Blacky, who has grown rather fat, is confused but still purring. Henry made a dash for the Linhay (a dilapidated farm building ) and has stayed there.

It's been a day of sunshine and short sharp showers. The apple trees are almost blossoming. Normally this is my favourite time of year, but this year we can't relax and enjoy it. Restrictions are being lifted, but that adds to our unease. There is a real danger that complacency or sheer weariness will lead to more outbreaks. It is good to know that the sun really does help, though.

There was only one outbreak in Devon yesterday (how many farms are affected?), but test results on several farms where sheep were "Slaughtered on Suspicion" have not come back yet. Thousands of farms in Devon are still suffering under form D's. Though milk can be collected from farms with form D's, the cows cannot be AI'd. There will be a shortage of English milk in due course. The shortfall will be made up by the supermarkets buying from abroad and no one will notice. In Cumbria the devastation doesn't bear thinking of.

The piglets are growing fast. They are extraordinary little creatures, racing around, and really enjoying being scratched. They'll rub against the water troughs or the edges of the pen to scratch themselves. Gussie and Gertie don't take any notice of them at all, except to lie down, grunting happily, as they climb over each other and their mothers to suck and chew quite violently at their teats.

Gertie and pile of piglets.

29th April

Number of premises on which animals have been or are due to be slaughtered - 6,298.

It's been a lovely day. We didn't have any of the forecast rain. It's been quite cool but with the sun shining and the light absolutely glowing. We spent most of the morning moving all but 9 (ewes with mastitis or lambs needing an eye kept on them) of the ewes and lambs out to Plat. There is now the constant sound of bleating as lambs look for their mothers. Most of the mothers are very good and keep close to their lambs, but some of them seem to forget the 2nd of a pair of twins as soon as they're in the open. This evening a gang of lambs were having fun tearing around together, and jumping on and off a raised concrete cover to a disused well.

We will put Daisy and Primrose in with them, either tomorrow or the next day, when the cows go out. It does still seem crazy that the advice is not to graze sheep and cows together, when the cows show symptons before the sheep will, and if our sheep are infected they'll kill our cows anyway. At least our neighbour will have a good arguement if we do get infected, that it won't have been lurking on the farm for weeks, hidden in the sheep. In other years it has been an unalloyed delight to see the sheep out with their lambs. Now I am looking anxiously at crows and magpies and hoping they haven't come from too far afield.

Nick Brown on the BBC's 'On the Rcord' today, being interviewed by John Humphries, said "We certainly believe that the first case was the Heddon-on-the-Wall farm and we've said so and that's still the government's view. " But in the Newcastle Chronicle, Dr Stuart Renton, a vet working for MAFF, is quoted as saying "Long standing foot and mouth lesions are being found in sheep nationally, indicating the disease was probably present before the initial outbreak in Heddon. We are still getting pockets of infection in sheep which we cannot trace back to Heddon." and a MAFF spokeswoman said "We only said it was the likely source and were not pointing fingers," she said. "It is one of a number of possible sources." If nothing else, it shows how well MAFF and their Minister are communicating.

Statistics are still confusing and very suspect. According to MAFF, infected farms have only gone up by 31 since Brown made his speech, on the 26th, but 420,000 more animals have been slaughtered. Last Sunday 5,884 farms had been affected, and today "Number of premises on which animals have been or are due to be slaughtered - 6,298." a rise of 414 in a week. Almost 60 a day. Actual cases of infection are less than 10 a day. But the NFU have told us that there are several farms where sheep have been "Slaughtered on Suspicion", and they are not included in the figures of infection.

The cats are adjusting to life outside. Scratch has spent all day in the shed, looking out of the window but with the door wide open. None of them are eating as much, so I hope they are eating mice and rabbits and not birds. The hay left in the shed is piled up very strangely, as we've been careful not to disturb the robin, which is now sitting on its nest. When James went to get straw a couple of days ago, he uncovered another robin's nest, complete with eggs and had to quickly cover it again and restack the straw. He's marked where it is, so it won't get disturbed again.

Happy cats
will soon relax
now that they are sprung
Some may hide
Some will sun
All will purr
with freedom won.
(From Debby)

30th April

Number of premises on which animals have been or are due to be slaughtered - 6,380.

But only 7 new cases, for the 92 farms more where animals are to be slaughtered. Seven does sound quite a bit better than 92. " We understand that about 80% of the tests on SOS animals are returned negative, " from today's NFU bulletin. (SOS = Slaughter on Suspicion).

"March 23 - when Professor King issued his dire forecast that the epidemic might not peak until June, and that there could be over 4,000 outbreaks in total - was also the day on which Tony Blair finally decided that enough was enough, and took command. Within hours, so it seemed, we lurched from complacency to overkill." Anthony Gibson in the WMN. " Human health, physical and mental, have been put at risk. Farming, tourism and the rural economy are in tatters, and the Prime Minister - who not long ago was confident that the situation was under control - has recently been uncharacteristically silent" Carol trewin in the WMN.

The National News had very little today about FMD. The Independent has copied the story from the Newcastle Chronicle. Foot and Mouth disease has become yesterday's news. 92 farms with their animals killed is of no interest to the general public. The politicians are certainly going to keep quiet unless the subject is brought up. The sooner it is forgotten the better. Tony Blair is anxious that no one points out that the death toll under his decisive leadership is going to be so much greater than King's original forecast.


Hermia in the crush, just after being drenched. She has uneven horns, as they grow inwards and need trimming regularly or they would grow into her head. I am very irritated that they were trimmed unevenly last time !

I took some brilliant photos this morning, but somehow managed to delete them. They were really good! We dosed all the cows with cobalt and selenium (we have a mineral deficiency in our soil here), before putting them out in a small part of Gratna. We'll move them to slade in a day or so. Primrose and Daisy are in with the sheep in Plat. They ran into the field, kicking their heels up, and the sheep all scattered. they soon got used to each other and settled down. The cows behave like calves for a few minutes and are then too busy eating grass to be excited.

Bullocks in Slade

We've put the one year old and two year old bullocks and heifers together. They're in Slade for today. We went down to the river to check the grass in the Ham, and that's where they'll go tomorrow. It felt very dangerous going down there. It was the sort of day which I'd normally have enjoyed tremendously. I did enjoy it, I just have an uneasy feeling about it. Our neighbour has sheep down by the river. With our animals being outside now, there's not much point in ours not being down there too. We just have to hope that the sun will work its magic. We are still being careful about anyone coming into the farm, and are just hoping that no one gets too relaxed, as the danger is still very real.

It was glorious down by the river. The dogs splashed across, chasing stones that James was throwing. the violets in Underhill are not quite finished, and the bluebells are starting to flower, with that wonderful sweet, clean scent. The birds have never sung louder. They even drown out the sound of lambs crying to their mothers.

One of the piglets got out and started chasing two of the chickens up the track. We let the chickens out today. The Maran cockerel came out very hesitantly, and then when the hens came out, he tried to chase them back in again. I hadn't realised how very fat the cockerels had grown after two months with only a little pen to walk in. They can't run very fast anymore, they waddle instead. I laughed and laughed to see the Maran chasing the Light Sussex up the track. Chasing is rather an energetic word for the quiet but intent waddle. They followed each other round Plat, with the lambs looking astonished, and then raced slowly down the track again. They both looked in danger of heart attacks. Once they stopped and had a half-hearted confrontation, both trying to leap in the air and attack, but they couldn't lift themselves off the ground.

Tigger has stopped being cross. He hasn't grown as fat as Blackie.