Day 36 and we have 729 cases of Foot and Mouth.
The army is now helping to cull sheep that are brought in to the large pits dug in Cumbria.
Vaccination is now being seriously considered as a firebreak measure - all animals that are vaccinated will then have to be slaughtered - as we are not coping with the cull and burn policy. There are around 100,000 dead animals lying in fields and yards awaiting disposal and well over that awaiting slaughter.
Nearly 500,000 animals have already been slaughtered, burned and buried.

The Government has said that around 1.3 million sheep were moved around the country between the times of the disease reaching the UK and the first outbreak being confirmed. A staggering number of animals with no record of movement or identifaction - let us, please, learn from that if nothing else.

The Government has also started to open up tourist attractions in the countryside and are insisting the financial implications of the tourism lost is greater than the risk of the disease spreading. Stonehenge is now open as is Old Sarum, both near us. Local farmers, already in despair, are astounded that such measures can be taken when they have been under such strain financially, mentally and emotionally. Nearly 300 footpaths and rights of way over farmland, in Wiltshire alone, have been opened. A Ministry of Agriculture spokesman said that as it has been two weeks since the last outbreak in Wiltshire it is a reasonable measure. We live on the edge of Salisbury Plain, right on the border with Wiltshire. The nearest outbreak to us was around two weeks ago - two and a half miles away.
Ireland has just reported it's second suspected case - the first was over two weeks ago.
Does this make sense to anyone?
Are we going to screen everyone going onto footpaths and visiting Stonehenge? (The answer there is no, in case you are wondering.)

We have felt we were sitting on a time bomb. People check their stock at the last possible moment before the light fades and then sit most of the night worrying what they will be faced with in the morning. Every morning that you have to drag yourself out to milking or to see how the lambing is going is a nightmare walk - at best you have thin cows, at worst you have dead sheep and lambs that you couldn't help despite the pain they have been through. The worst thing is not even Foot and Mouth anymore, in many cases it is a kind of relief from the constant worry about the hardship your stock is facing.

A scheme has been set up where farmers can ask for voluntary slaughter of their stock on welfare grounds. A vet must then come in and confirm that conditions warrant slaughter. There is such a shortage of ministry vets that such requests are not a major priority at the moment. Farmers that can see no way to allieviate the suffering of their animals are being told that requests for welfare slaughter will take three to four weeks to implement. Some are begining to pray for Foot and Mouth to put an end to their animals suffering as it is a quicker end than waiting for starving, drowning and ill animals to be put down.