Farmers Building up Resistance

‘We Would Rather Die Than Let Them Kill Our Flock’

Brian and Josephine Wheatley, tenant farmers in Cumbria with 1,200 ewes, said they would rather die than see their healthy ewes slaughtered.
‘We will not accept it,’ Mr Wheatley said. ‘We will do our best to fight them at the farm gates if we have to. I would rather be dead than come back to an empty farm.’
The Wheatleys, who farm at Inglewood, near Penrith, have built up their herd over 20 years from only 50 ewes. Sheep are their only asset. They have not had a holiday for 20 years because all their money has gone back into the flock.
Mrs Wheatley, 46, who built the herd up to 530 single-handedly, said: ‘The compensation doesn’t matter. They are our lives. How can they expect me to hand the ewes and lambs up some morning to be put down. I know most of them. They haven’t a clue.’
Both say they cannot see the point of the policy. 52-year-old Mr Wheatley said: ‘The Government cannot keep up with their slaughter policy. All round Cumberland there are animals slaughtered and lying in the fields for three or four days. We are not going to stand by and let the Government kill the healthy sheep unless they get their act together.’
They have 200 lambs at the moment and, in another three weeks, lambing will start in earnest, with possibly 2,000 more to come. This lambing represents their income for the next 12 months. Compensation is not the issue but it is also true that, if their stock is slaughtered, it will be 18 months before they have any income.
There have been no confirmed cases of foot and mouth in sheep in their area. Like many other farmers they say that, if their stock had foot and mouth, it would be bitter but they could accept a slaughter. It is above all the senseless culling of the healthy animals that appals them.