Farrier and Dentist - Keeping Horses in Condition - Laminitis - Cattle and Sheep - Foot and Mouth

Foot and Mouth Disease

This has always been a dread to the farmer with cattle and sheep. Cumbria has experienced serious outbreaks in earlier centuries: 1845, 1849-52, 1861-63; 1865-72. Cattle movements were halted, agricultural shows cancelled, just as they are in 2001.

Compared with the present British method of dealing with it - slaughter, and the firebreak cull - old methods have an innocent charm.

Need Fire

One method of curing animals and rendering healthy ones immune to the disease was to kindle the "need fire". Garnett quotes Wm Pearson who described the last "need fire" known in Westmorland:

"... an angel was said to descend and set fire to a tree in Yorkshire; this strange sight attracted the curiosity of the cattle, and those which were affected were cured, and remained ever after immune to the disease. The angel left written directions that the fire was to be handed on from farm to farm, and the cattle passed through the smoke and all would be well, but in the event of it going out it was to be rekindled by means of rubbing two pieces of wood together which had never been in a house, all the fires in the houses being extinguished during the time the kindling took place."

The last "Need Fire " was set going at Killington, near Kendal, in 1840, and was passed through all the county to as far as Skirwith in Cumberland. "Damp litter and green wood was used to produce the greatest amount of smoke ... cattle were driven close to the fire and sometimes through it ... It arrived at Howgill at midnight, yet most of the farmers cheerfully complied and as cheerfully forwarded the fire to their neighbours. A few, whose idleness outbalanced their supersition, remained in bed."

Animal Treatment
Farrier and Dentist - Keeping Horses in Condition - Laminitis - Cattle and Sheep - Foot and Mouth