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You may have heard that there has been a foot and mouth scare near Guildford in Surrey. As of 10pm Friday evening, there has been a national ban on livestock movements. Luckily this is a long way from Fordhall farm, however we must still exercise the utmost care and take all precautions to protect our animals.
The Farm Shop is still open. As a precaution we have had to close the nature trail and restrict access to our animals. We have disinfectant foot baths for our visitors and we appreciate your cooperation.
Ben is at Owestry show today as planned. It has still gone ahead but there will be no animals at the show.
We had planned to be at Shrewsbury Flower Show next weekend and we hope that this will go ahead but at the moment we are unsure if Ben will be able to take his animals to slaughter this week. This is particulary worrying as we obviously rely on being able to sell our produce direct to the customer for our survival.
We really appreciate all your support and will keep you updated as this situation develops. We are confident that the lessons learnt following the last outbreak in 2001 will limit the spread and effect this time.
Ben and Charlotte
The Farm Shop is still open. As a precaution we have had to close the nature trail and restrict access to our animals. We have disinfectant foot baths for our visitors and we appreciate your cooperation.
Ben is at Owestry show today as planned. It has still gone ahead but there will be no animals at the show.
We had planned to be at Shrewsbury Flower Show next weekend and we hope that this will go ahead but at the moment we are unsure if Ben will be able to take his animals to slaughter this week. This is particulary worrying as we obviously rely on being able to sell our produce direct to the customer for our survival.
We really appreciate all your support and will keep you updated as this situation develops. We are confident that the lessons learnt following the last outbreak in 2001 will limit the spread and effect this time.
Ben and Charlotte
4 comments:
Will this impact on the planned open day?
Just to let you know we've been thinking about you, and all livestock farmers, with a great deal of sympathy since the announcement. The part of cambridgeshire where we are is almost all arable, so we are totally dependant on the animals raised by other parts of the country for dairy and meat, and we really appreciate the work you guys put in. I took our 3 girls to a local very small piggery on the edge of the village on "Open Farm Sunday" in June, so we all have a much closer idea of what's involved in the day to day care of livestock, and how close you can get to the animals in your care.
We really hope this doesn't last long.
Thank you all for your concern and for all the emails we have also had about the foot and mouth outbreak in Surrey.
We are currently looking into our event on August 19th to assess whether the risk is worth taking.
Our biggest problem is that as it is such a large event, people travel from quite a distance and this is where the risk begins to be an issue.
We'll let you know as soon as a decision has been made.
Dear Sophie, Charlotte and Ben,
Although the content of your e:mail is disappointing and you must be worried
about the spread of the disease, it reminded me to write to congratulate you
on the book. I have just finished reading it and found it unbelievably
inspiring.
I have to say that Nick and I must have been two people on another planet
when all the publicity was going on - we must have seen some of it because
when we passed the farm by chance last summer and saw the banner we both
remarked "oh, yes I've heard something about that", so we called in and
bought some shares - oh, as well as some organic meat! Having read about
your struggles but also the ultimate success that you achieved, I think
another share purchase may be on the way!
Christine, Staffordshire
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