John and Avril McGregor, Dale Foot Farm, Bishopdale.
Lost 70 cattle and 368 sheep, plus lambs. (John) "We had a blood test and inspection one Tuesday afternoon. The next morning, the neighbouring farmer rang to say that they were suspected of having foot and mouth. I went down to commiserate, because we knew we would go as contiguous in any case, and on the way down I noticed a heifer that was slathering. At 2 o'clock the previous day they'd been inspected by the vets and passed as OK, and the following morning they had it. There were 21 heifers, and within two hours they had all developed symptoms. There was one to begin with, and then another two, and before the vet came we got them in, and they were virtually all effected. DEFRA sent a vet out, and he confirmed it straight away. They wanted to slaughter the animals that day, but because they weren't physically suffering we were allowed to keep them overnight until a pedigree valuer came the next morning. Then they slaughtered them here, and took the carcasses away. The cattle first, then the sheep. Then we didn't leave the farm for two weeks. We had a license to go off for emergencies only. The neighbours were brilliant, they brought our groceries to the gate, and the people who have the village shop brought us the newspapers and anything else we needed. The telephone never stopped ringing, we had countless letters, cards and phone calls. The only thing that was difficult to deal with was very emotional people on the telephone, who didn't know what to say. They were worse than us, to be honest. Now we're cleaning up. Initially, DEFRA had a system whereby farmers could do it at a set rate. But that was being abused by contractors, and costing too much. So now DEFRA assess each premises, and estimate the number of hours they would expect you to clean it in. It's a nightmare! It has to be immaculate. We didn't realise the full extent of it until they came the other day. Any concrete block walls with open cavities have to be filled in and sealed up. They keep coming back, and if it isn't good enough you start again. We clean it up and they disinfect it when its clean to their satisfaction, and then they come back 10 days later and disinfect it again. The earliest you can restock is about two months after your second disinfecting. The saddest place is the oldest, where you started up. We started with just 45 acres, 30 years ago, and slowly bought more land and built up the stock. The saddest thing is losing the cattle, we'd built up to have a fine herd of 170 Holsteins. Four generations, and they all had names. We plan to start milk production again. The future of this place belongs to our son, not to us. We have a few years left, but not as many as him. We're making improvements to the buildings, and hoping to come back stronger than before. But the problems will begin when we start buying the cattle: We don't know how much they'll cost, or where we'll get them from. They'll probably be expensive. DEFRA have been quite good, but they don't seem to understand the relationship between farmers and animals, they don't seem to care about the animals. The powers-that-be owe it to the farming community to put it down in black and white and explain what has happened. Some people say the virus lives only 2 or 3 hours after the animal has been killed. But others say the virus was brought here through imported meat, that arrived frozen, and was then obviously cooked, and then got into the pig swill and was passed on to the animals. Now these two theories contradict one another, so which is true? When you put 2 and 2 together, you don't always get the right answer".
