FMD outbreak, Shearer movements controlled
Plans have been unveiled in Britain to control sheep shearers moving from foot and mouth infected areas to disease-free zones amid fears for the welfare of unshorn animals. The British Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) said that the shearing season posed a significant risk of spreading the virus. But farmers claimed that if sheep are not shorn soon there will be appalling animal welfare consequences.
Sheep carrying heavy fleeces could die from heat exhaustion due to rising temperatures while their thick wool also encourages flies to lay eggs, which hatch into maggots, they said. MAFF proposes to introduce a licensing scheme from 1 June to control the movements of shearers from infected to controlled areas. Every year hundreds of full-time shearers fly to Britain from New Zealand and Australia. They travel from farm to farm, shearing up to 300 sheep a day. But this year some have been told they will be refused work back home if they come into contact with British farm animals.
Farmers fear they may have difficulty getting their sheep sheared. Tim Brooks, the Country Land and Business Association's regional director for the south-west of England, said that contract shearers have been forbidden to visit farms in the infected areas of the region. The consequences would be that unshorn sheep will attract flies and parasites which lay eggs around the rectum and vulva, leading to appalling maggot infestations which eat the sheep alive, he said.
