Pigs Slaughter
When Sue and Paul Snell look out of their kitchen window they can see the smoke from burning carcasses – a reminder of the foot and mouth disease that surrounds their pig unit at Harewood End in Herefordshire.
Unfortunately, for an increasing number of farming families this is now a familiar sight, but for Sue the added worry has been that in the very near future it would not be the Ministry lighting the funeral pyres at their farm, but her husband Paul.
Paul has 120 breeding sows and runs a pig fattening unit. Currently there are about 1000 animals at the unit, aged from one day old up to twenty weeks. Up to 100 piglets a fortnight are produced and each of these pigs is adding to the growing welfare problem at Little Meadow Farm.
“We're living from day to day, some days it's hour by hour depending on what's on the news or what our local vet says,” explained Sue. “We're not able to move our pigs because we're in an infected area. In the past few days there's been an outbreak in the next village, so now we're within the 3km zone.”
Every detail of the situation impacts on what the couple can do with their pigs.
“For the past three weeks we've been trying to squeeze the animals in, but we've no land and we just haven't anywhere to put them,” Sue continued. “Our vet has said that pigs in cramped conditions will soon start attacking one another – next week we're going to have to do something.”
The couple have just learnt there is to be some partial compensation for voluntary slaughtering of animals on welfare grounds, but details of any scheme are vague.
“At the moment the position is that we've got to kill the pigs ourselves on the premises and get rid of the bodies, it's up to us to solve the problem. But hopefully things are going to change.
“I would feel an awful lot happier if my husband did not have to kill his own animals, but we must keep enough space between the pigs to keep them safe and look after their welfare.
“Presumably if you get foot and mouth you could shut yourself away and let the Ministry come in and do it all for you. For us – we'd have to organise the vet, the slaughterman and be there, hands on doing it.
Sue explained: “It's not just that we've got three weeks extra pigs on the farm today. In a fortnight's time there will be another hundred – and a fortnight after that another hundred - until Christmas. So for us this slaughter won't just happen the once.
“At the moment they are thrashing out a scheme to dispose of animals on welfare grounds. Hopefully they will take on board the worries of farmers in our situation who are facing the reality of slaughtering our own stock.”
During the past week the situation is constantly changing, and as further statements are made by government officials, Sue is desperately hoping that the Ministry will take a more active role. But the uncertainty takes its toll.
“You look out of the kitchen window. It's worse at night because in the daytime you can just see the smoke. At night when it's dark you can see the flames, and it's huge and it's been there for nine days.”
Sue continued: “We've got no money coming in from the farm. I have a small child-minding business, which puts food on the table and fits in well with our own three children. The saving grace is that the pig unit is 200 yards down the road from the farmhouse.
“I'm up and down like a yoyo. One minute I'm going to attack everybody – the next I'm opening a bottle. You do feel bad sometimes, but we've got some good neighbours, friends and family who are always on the phone.
“Paul is 49 and he works seven days a week on the pig unit – we haven't had a holiday for three years.
“If he came home to an empty house he'd feel worse – but he has to keep his chin up for the children.”
Some local farmers have sent their children away from the farm because of exams and to make sure that if the worse happens the children would not be there to witness the distress and devastation.
Sue concluded: “If we got foot and mouth I don't know whether Paul would have the heart or the financial backing to start up again. But I don't know what else he'd do. I can't see him collecting up supermarket trolleys.
“We've now been promised some compensation, but we've still got a daunting task ahead of us. Foot and mouth is just round the corner – who knows what might happen?