Huge Burial Pits Dug at Airfield Site for 200,000 Sheep										

A former airfield was being prepared as a burial site for 200,000 sheep as ministers unveiled new measures to tackle the foot and mouth crisis. Great Orton, near Carlisle, where pits 13 feet deep were being dug, is the first place to be approved as a site for mass slaughter. The Ministry of Agriculture announced the decision as it confirmed that farmers may be stopped from serving slops to pigs and that, in the long term, new restrictions could be imposed on the movement of sheep. The moves follow a ‘worrying’ increase in the number of foot and mouth cases. Martin Atkinson, the deputy Chief Veterinary Officer, said it was ‘worrying’ that some of the new cases over the weekend had occurred in areas that had been ‘relatively clean’. He was particularly concerned by a case in Castle Douglas, which lies between the two main clusters of infection in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, and a case in Northwich, Cheshire, which was six miles away from any outbreak. At Great Orton, some slaughtered sheep will be brought to the airfield for burial. The rotting bodies will be taken from the farms and sealed in lorries to stop them spreading disease en route. Later in the week, live sheep earmarked for slaughter will be taken to the airfield for disposal. Although the ministry said that it intended to bury only 200,000 animals at the site, Brig Alex Birtwistle, who is commanding the Army’s operation in Cumbria, said it was licensed to bury up to 500,000 animals. Several pits – each 160 yards long and 15 yards wide – were being dug at the site. Lady Hayman, a junior agriculture minister, said the Government would start consulting this week on plans to ban the use of pig swill, which is thought to be a possible cause of the outbreak. Traditionally, swill was made up from locally grown produce but nowadays it can be composed of food drawn from around the world. Only 1.4% of farmers feed their pigs on swill slops – from discarded meals – and they are already banned from using food from airlines or transport ships in what they give to their animals. Suppliers and users of swill containing meat are currently required to be licensed, to submit to quarterly ministry inspections and to heat-treat the slops to 100 &Mac251;C or more to kill off bugs. But in the wake of the present epidemic and last year’s swine fever outbreak in East Anglia, these precautions are no longer considered adequate. Lady Hayman said the ministry was ‘looking urgently’ at whether new restrictions should be introduced on sheep movement. Farmers are already prevented from selling on pigs and cows within 21 days of purchase and the same limit could be imposed for sheep. She confirmed that the ministry was considering the use of vaccination to limit the spread of foot-and-mouth. It could be used to impose a cordon sanitaire around infected areas, to reduce the spread in highly infected areas to give more time for animals to be culled, or to protect rare breeds or pedigree stock, said Lady Hayman.