Page 249 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
CHAPTER 15
Foot and Mouth Disease:
Life and Death on the Farm (1967 – 1968 and 2001)
In 1967 – 1968 Britain experienced the worst Foot and Mouth (FMD) epidemic of the 20th century. It was attributed to pig swill containing infect- ed Argentine lamb and resulted in two thousand two hundred and twenty-eight outbreaks being recorded during a nine-month period and the slaughter of nearly four hundred and fifty thou- sand animals. These statistics were only sur- passed the next time the FMD epidemic hit Brit- ish farms and farmers in 2001.
In both outbreaks, RAVC Veterinary Officers and Non – Commissioned Officers – Regular and TA – from across the UK, rallied to offer their invaluable expert assistance in what became a horrific and heart-breaking operation of culling, clean-up, and control.
“As a farmer’s son growing up on a farm, I was, even at a young age, intensely aware of the impact of foot and mouth disease, not only on the beasts themselves but on the entire farming community. At home, the worry and the stress were felt through every agonising day of both bouts of the epidemic. Through 1967 – 1968, I recall the Ministry vets coming around late at night checking our pigs and cows and I remember the flash of the torchlight as they looked over the pigs’ trotters, and the cows’ hooves for the dreaded sight of blisters, as well as looking into each animal’s mouth for ulcers.
I recall the ban on movements, constant foot baths and straw mattresses placed at the farm entrance with sprayers to disinfect all the wheels of any vehicle that needed to come onto the farm. It was even worse when the epidemic returned in 2001. The outbreaks were within a dozen or so miles of home, and at times there were serious concerns that the livestock would fall inside a fire wall area, due to proximity of other outbreaks on properties close by. To have a lifetime’s worth of stock bred and reared, and then to have them culled in a few days and put into huge lime pits, or burned, was too much for any animal devotee to bear.
We were very fortunate, my family’s stock and the farm survived, and as a member of the Corps I never had to deal with the nationwide foot and mouth epidemics, however, I could not help but empathise with RAVC
members who were, unfortunately, heavily involved in the slaughter of animals.”
[Lt Col Chris Ham MBE RAVC]
RAVC takes on Operation FIELD FARE:
RAVC records state that on 15th November 1967, four Veterinary Officers and four Senior non-commissioned Officers (SNCOs) deployed at the request of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) to assist with profes- sional and technical duties in Northern England to combat FMD, and four VOs and seven SNCOs were deployed during the entire period until withdrawal in early January 1968. The deployment of an Officer normally included one serving with the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery.
What they were facing was a highly infectious, notifiable disease of domestic ruminants and pigs, other farmed, cloven-hoofed mammals, and wild ruminants. FMD is a significant economic disease as it has the ability to spread very rapidly and have a profound effect on productivity. A very small quantity of the virus is capable of infecting an animal. The disease spreads rapidly through stock if it is not controlled quickly.1
The symptoms are dramatic. Affected animals have a high fever, which is followed by the development of blisters mainly in the mouth and on the feet. In some species – notably sheep and goats – the disease is less severe or occurs as a sub-clinical infection. Some strains can give rise to high levels of mortality in young animals. In adult animals the disease is not usually fatal, however it causes severe pain and distress, especially in cattle, and animals may be left permanently lame with reduced productivity following recovery.
The creeping horror of FMD caused animal slaughter on a vast a scale throughout the lush pastures of Britain’s countryside and, alongside it, incredible heartbreak to farmers. The RAVC was heavily involved in the ‘aid to the civil power’, and, as captured by Soldier Magazine in January 1968, it also saw RAVC personnel disinfecting
1 Wikipedia.
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