Let's Pray This Doesn't Get Out Of Hand

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 14:13 | Categorized as

07/02/12 -- My butcher mate tells me that there's a real panic going round the livestock markets at the moment. The culprit is the Schmallenberg virus. That might sound like a former German heavyweight champion of the world to you, but in fact it is a horrible midge spread disease that up until now had only been found on a few sheep farms in the south east.

Worryingly the Farmers' Guardian today report that the disease has now been found in cattle too, taking the number of confirmed cases up from 11 last week to 29 today. Doubly worrying is that they say that "the number of confirmed cases could just be the tip of the iceberg" as the disease generally only shows itself during lambing or calving.

For more info see here: Schmallenberg found in cattle on Sussex farm