HEAVY LOSSES OF STOCK

Southland Times, Issue 23380, 11 December 1937, Page 19

HEAVY LOSSES OF STOCK

FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE ENGLISH OUTBREAKS Nine outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease have resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of animals in Great Britain during the past week, wrote a London correspondent on November 10. They are the most serious of the 43 outbreaks reported this year to the beginning of November. Two theories have been advanced as to the cause, one by Mr W. S. Morrison, Minister of Agriculture. He suggested that, as the present series of outbreaks coincided with a violent outbreak on the Continent, infection might have been carried across the Channel'.

Replying in the House of Commons to a question asking for information about the outbreaks, Mr Morrison said that infection was disclosed in a consignment of 112 cattle exposed at Stowmarket on November 4, one beast being then in the early stages of the disease. Because of the very grave risk of the spread of infection all cattle and swine in the market were seized and prompt arrangements were made for thenslaughter, which was affected in about 24 hours. MANY ANIMALS DESTROYED By that time other cattle in the infected consignment had developed the disease, 233 cattle, including 33 contact animals not exposed in the market, were destroyed and their carcasses incinerated, and of 1242 swine involved 1160 fat animals were sent to local bacon factories fot immediate slaughter and salvage. The remaining pigs were slaughtered and the carcasses burned. During 1937, 2571 cattle, 4319 sheep and 2645 pigs have been slaughtered, and the compensation payable to owners as a result of such slaughter amounts to £75,000. Foot-and-mouth disease has taken heavy toll of farm stock in the last few weeks, particularly in Norfolk and Suffolk. Grievous losses have been suffered by farmers whose animals have been slaughtered, and also by trades men and others in many capacities by the abandoning of markets. Norwich has lost its fat stock show for the first time in 60 years through such a cause. The official restrictions on movement of animals rendered this inevitable, but there ■ was bitter disappointment among those who had prepared beasts for exhibition. Mr Morrison’s theory of the cause of the outbreak is supported by a Stowmarket auctioneer, who has stated that the outbreak there was believed to have been caused through birds carrying infection from the Continent to the meadows in which cattle had grazed. Another view is that 70 per cent, of the recorded “parent" Or original outbreaks (as distinct from mechanical spreading from these sources) is due to the importation of chilled meat,. cold cured bacon, and other raw animal products from countries infested with tiie disease. The marrow-bones of Argentine meat and the rind of Polish and other Eastern European bacc#s are believed to be major sources oi infection.