I don’t usually watch much television, especially during the lambing season, but at the moment the focal points of my day are the lunchtime and evening News. My feeling of disquiet started a few weeks ago when the farming press reported a case of foot-and-mouth disease in Brittany. For a few weeks it spread in a local area; then the disease reached across the water to Jersey. A few more days of cool damp weather with strong Westerly winds and it hit the Isle of Wight. Then they began to slaughter cattle in Hampshire – and my feelings of disquiet turned to alarm.
I watched an interview with a farmer who had just seen his entire herd shot – and my heart bled for him. I turned off the television and walked across the farmyard to the barns. A row of white heads looked at me expectantly – as fine a herd of pedigree suckler cows as you will see anywhere. I felt as though members of my family were under threat of some as yet unconfirmed, but fatal, illness. Each cow’s face and name are familiar; they each have particular foibles and an individual personality. If I close my eyes I can even see a mental picture of each one’s dam and sire as well.
Hereford cattle have been bred in the area for generations. Farmers started breeding from sinewy, heavily brisketed, sires such as ‘Leopold’ (born 1815) who was the first registered pedigree Hereford sire. They continued refining the animals until they produced the smoothly fleshed, roundly flanked beast that is the modern Hereford. A breed which has now stamped its dominant white face on cattle throughout the Americas, Australia and Africa. Our own herd was founded in 1932, and since then careful breeding has produced a thriving herd. Each female calf born in the herd is registered with her dam’s name but an individual number; so Evelyn 40’s daughters are called Evelyn 41, Evelyn 42, etc. The female families within the herd are kept distinct and they all have some desired characteristics, such as broad ribs, good hind quarters or strong thighs. By judicious line breeding within a given family, and then cross-breeding between families or occasionally buying in a sire with some specific qualities that he can add, the herd can multiply for years without becoming too inbred.
So, if our herd falls prey to foot-and-mouth disease, not only do we lose a lot of old friends, but the bank of specific genes contained within the genome of each family is also irretrievably lost. The same is true of milking herds where generations of breeding for conformation , butter-fat or high yields can be wiped-out overnight. Any compensation paid farmers is based solely on each animal
as a commercial carcass and takes no account of the incalculable value of the pedigree breeding stock.
The disease is so virulent and spreads with such ease on the wind that it is very difficult to contain. In the 1967 epidemic, reputedly, outbreaks kept happening on farms that had been visited by one particular Ministry official, despite his most stringent precautions of disinfecting himself, his clothes and vehicle. The source of infection was eventually traced to his leather watch strap – which he had always removed before scrubbing his hands.
So all we can do is leave matters in the hands of Fate. But can I please ask all urban dwelling, country-lovers, not to bring their cars unnecessarily into the countryside for the next few weeks, and beg all ramblers to avoid the public footpaths on livestock farms. The menace of foot-and-mouth is
a recurrent nightmare for farmers at the moment and cattle breeders are praying that they won’t see a lifetime’s work lost overnight.