Schamllenberg

I feared this terrible blight would catch on and now it seems it might be becoming a universal England wide phenomenon. This article tells us:

Farmers are facing an anxious season for new lambs and calves, as most of the sheep flocks and cattle herds in England and Wales are now thought to be infected with Schmallenberg virus, an emerging livestock disease which can cause birth deformities in newborn animals, Government scientists have warned.

From its first appearance in eastern England a year ago, where it was brought by midges on the wind from continental Europe, the infection has now spread rapidly right across the country as far as the Scottish border and has been found in every county of England and Wales. “Most of the flocks and herds in livestock raising areas are now likely to be infected,” said the Chief Veterinary Officer, Nigel Gibbens.

Britain has about 22m sheep in the national flock and just under 10m cattle, so the number of infected animals is likely to be enormous. But officials have no precise idea of how many, as Schmallenberg has not been made an officially notifiable disease, and the only centrally-held records of infection are those which vets have chosen themselves to submit to the Government.

However, the number of animals actually born with deformities as a result of the virus is likely to be very low – less than five per cent of an affected flock, and affected flocks can be less than six per cent of the total which have caught the disease – although in rare cases, the number of malformed lambs in a particular flock can be as high as forty or even fifty per cent, which is very distressing for the farmer concerned.