Oh my God.
There's been an outbreak of foot and mouth in a farm about half a mile from my house. It's really quite terrifying. There are helicopters spinning around constantly, and they are so bloody loud. They started up about 3am last night, and they haven't given up as of yet. We've basically got Sky News on constantly, and I can't tell you how weird it is to the see the road that I've walked down countless times on the telly. Before we moved to the house we're in now, we actually lived next door to where the foot and mouth was found. Yeah, we only moved about two houses down :]
It's just so surreal. Nothing ever happens in my little village, let alone a national breaking news story. Me and my family we're pretty ignorant at the beginning to what Foot and Mouth was beyond a brief definition, and we had a bit of a panic attack over whether the dogs could get it, since the virus is airborne, but then wikipedia came to the rescue and we found out that dogs can't get it :).
They're performing culls, where they're basically burning as many cows as they can fit into a home made pen at a time. We can see the smoke, and the smell is apparently revolting. I've been ill over the last week, and I can't smell anything cos I have a blocked noise. I'm eternally grateful. The smell of burning cattle carcass isn't something I want to experience.
I don't know how long this is going to go on, and as of yet they haven't found any other cases of F&M. But, they're having to kill any animal that could catch it, for instance they're going out and literally shooting dead any deers they see. Since this is quite a rural area, they're are a lot of deer. In fact on a main road earlier, a deer was run over, and due to the risk of F&M being passed on, the car that hit it, and every car they could find that ran over the dead body are being stopped and put under quarantine, along with all the people that were in the cars. That's what my mum was told, anyway.
I'm pretty worried, but at least the last human F&M case was in 1966, so the chances of it coming back now are slim. Still.
Foot and Mouth info
More info about the recent outbreak 1 2 3
It's just so surreal. Nothing ever happens in my little village, let alone a national breaking news story. Me and my family we're pretty ignorant at the beginning to what Foot and Mouth was beyond a brief definition, and we had a bit of a panic attack over whether the dogs could get it, since the virus is airborne, but then wikipedia came to the rescue and we found out that dogs can't get it :).
They're performing culls, where they're basically burning as many cows as they can fit into a home made pen at a time. We can see the smoke, and the smell is apparently revolting. I've been ill over the last week, and I can't smell anything cos I have a blocked noise. I'm eternally grateful. The smell of burning cattle carcass isn't something I want to experience.
I don't know how long this is going to go on, and as of yet they haven't found any other cases of F&M. But, they're having to kill any animal that could catch it, for instance they're going out and literally shooting dead any deers they see. Since this is quite a rural area, they're are a lot of deer. In fact on a main road earlier, a deer was run over, and due to the risk of F&M being passed on, the car that hit it, and every car they could find that ran over the dead body are being stopped and put under quarantine, along with all the people that were in the cars. That's what my mum was told, anyway.
I'm pretty worried, but at least the last human F&M case was in 1966, so the chances of it coming back now are slim. Still.
Foot and Mouth info
More info about the recent outbreak 1 2 3