Sheep farm visitors greeted with boot bath

LINCOLNVILLE – Lambing season at Kelmscott Farm is always a special time of year, but this Easter weekend was also a wary one.

Fearful that the foot-and-mouth epidemic that has swept Europe could land on U.S. shores, the farm has taken precautions to protect its herds of exotic sheep and spring lambs. It is disinfecting the footwear of every visitor who wants to walk around. So shoes and boots are given a bath before people enter the grounds. Visitors then are asked to wear disposable plastic booties over their footwear.

And as long as scores of visitors walked the farm’s sweeping pastures and open hills during the weekend, thoughts of the virulent disease were never far from the mind of shepherd Scott Browdridge as he tended his flock.

“We’re not taking any chances,” Browdridge said Sunday. “We’re taking preventive biosecurity measures to keep people from possibly infecting the animals, not only with foot-and-mouth but other diseases as well.”

Although the disease has not manifested itself in this country in more than 70 years, all those involved with this farm that is home to a number of rare breeds of sheep are not about to be caught off guard.

Foot-and-mouth appeared in the English midlands earlier this year and quickly spread throughout the United Kingdom. The disease strikes cloven-hoofed ruminants such as cattle, sheep, pigs and goats. Although it is not fatal, the animals grow weak and lose weight, effectively ending their marketability.

In the months since foot-and-mouth’s discovery, hundreds of thousands of animals have been put to death in Britain in hopes of stopping the spread of the highly contagious disease. Instances of foot-and-mouth have since been reported in France and Ireland.

Browdridge said Kelmscott began its prevention program at the beginning of the month. The farm is a showcase of rare breeds and is open to the public every day but Monday. More than 5,000 people tour the farm each year, and the lambing season is a particularly popular time.

To date, the farm’s flock of 200 sheep has produced 83 lambs. Most of the sheep give birth to twins, though one produced a set of triplets on Friday.

The flock consists of Cotswold sheep, an English longwool breed known for its high luster. There are probably fewer than 5,000 Cotswolds the world over. The farm also is home to Shetlands, Soya, horned Jacobs and Delia-Merino. Kelmscott Farm breeds approximately 55 rare and endangered ewes each fall and expects an annual production of 80 to 100 lambs.

Browdridge said that some of the lambs are sold as breeding stock to other farms; others to specialty markets for their meat.

Browdridge said the U.S. Department of Agriculture inspects every animal imported from foreign countries. There are also strict standards for imported meat. Because there is no indication that foot-and-mouth disease has crossed the Atlantic, the USDA has not imposed any restrictions, he said.

“Right now it’s pretty much left up to the individual farms,” he said. “It would be difficult for it to get over here, but it would be disastrous if it did. There are a lot of things out there that are just as bad as foot-and-mouth and we don’t want any of it here.”