Gloucestershire farmers round up 10,000 sheep

Farmers in Gloucestershire have began rounding up 10,000 sheep in the Forest of Dean after a second case of foot-and-mouth was confirmed in the county.

There are fears that the wind could have carried the disease to a farm at Frampton on Severn, about three miles away from Blakeney, where an outbreak has been confirmed.

Keith Davis, chairman of the Forest of Dean branch of the British NFU, said six roaming sheep were shot after they were spotted grazing near the Blakeney farm.

He added: "This second case is bad news for Gloucestershire. We thought we were clear but with two cases confirmed within two days, everyone is very nervous about what is going to happen.

"It is especially worrying because we do not know how many of the roaming sheep have been wandering around the farms.

"They are being rounded up but it will take some time and there are up to 30 farms in the Blakeney area."

Gloucestershire NFU chairman Peter Davidson-Smith said: "We just wonder where it is going to end.

"There is a lot of farmland within a five-mile radius of the confirmed cases and we are all worried to death, especially if the disease has been windblown across the Severn."

A MAFF spokeswoman said a total of 1,265 ewes and lambs were slaughtered at the Blakeney farm over the weekend and another 115 sheep were today being killed.

Gloucestershire NFU deputy chairman Henry Boughton has criticised the decision not to bring in earlier the sheep which roam through the Forest of Dean.

He said: "It should have been done right at the start. The sheep walk through the villages like Littledean and they have been a clear risk."