Livestock being frozen to death in their thousands

As heavy snow brought more chaos to Scotland yesterday, upland sheep farmers in particular feared that their flocks could be killed as a result of the longest cold spell to hit Scotland's agricultural industry for decades.

The prolonged Arctic blast is now the worst seen in Scotland since 1963, according to First Minister Alex Salmond, who praised workers for keeping key roads open, despite widespread anger that many roads and pavements remain ungritted.

The cold spell is now threatening the lives of thousands of farm animals across the country.

Upland sheep farmers fear that their flocks could be killed as a result of deep snow. Those in hilly areas of the country, where snow drifts are already up to 4ft deep, are finding it increasingly difficult to get vital feed to their herds of cows and flocks of sheep.

Pat Withers, the chief executive of the National Farmers' Union of Scotland, told The Scotsman: "We have some fields where farmers are looking out and can't get to their flocks. They can just see the heads of their sheep poking up above the snow. One more snowfall there – and a bit of wind picking up – and they will lose them."

Mr Withers said the problem was particularly acute in the Highlands, Moray, Aberdeenshire and the Borders.

Some farmers have been unable, for up to eight days, to get vital supplies of supplementary feed to their livestock. They are also being hit by delays in suppliers reaching them along treacherous rural routes.

Rural affairs secretary Richard Lochhead, who is being kept fully briefed on the deteriorating situation, said: "Scotland is in the grip of the harshest winter weather conditions in decades, which is adding to the weight of challenges faced by farmers at this time of year.

"I have been in contact with farmers and industry organisations to keep abreast of the problems created by this unusually bad weather."

Schools and roads all over the country were closed yesterday, with the Borders, North-east and Highlands bearing the brunt of the bad weather.

Last night, several hundred homes in the Kelso and Duns areas of the Borders were without electricity after heavy snow brought down power lines.

A ScottishPower spokesman said engineers were trying to restore supplies as quickly as possible.

Heavy snow and temperatures as low as -11C caused further disruption to roads, railways and airports across the country.

A woman died in a car crash in Shetland, while a 59-year-old pedestrian was seriously injured when he was hit by a car in Aberdeen. Both accidents are believed to be weather-related.

The Met Office said its predicted low of -20C by the weekend would hit sheltered inland areas such as Braemar, with parts of the Central Belt down to -11C by tonight.

The Borders was worst hit by yesterday's snowfall, with major routes such as the A7, A68 and A702 blocked or extremely hazardous.

Police said drivers should not take to the roads "unless it is a life-or-death situation", while all the region's First bus services were cancelled.

The A9 – the main route to the Highlands – reopened, but conditions were "atrocious" and other roads in the north and North-east remained blocked.

Farmers' fears

ABERDEENSHIRE farmer Tom Johnston spoke of the concerns facing farmers.

Mr Johnston, North East regional chairman of the National Farmers' Union of Scotland, said: "With the volume of snow there is no feed (for animals] except for the feed that you are taking out to them. With lambs and ewes it's important to keep them on a good ration and you have to get feed out on a daily basis. The job is extremely difficult because of the snow and ice.

The danger is that if we get windy weather and the snow blows you get drifts and sheep can actually be buried in the snow."

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Livestock-being-frozen-to-death.5961813.jp

American Livestock Breeds Conservancy

A chicken coup: Group seeks to protect rare breeds

By TRACIE CONE, Associated Press Writer – Fri Apr 24, 4:17 am ET

FRESNO, Calif. – At about the time Foghorn Leghorn appeared on the Looney Toons drawing board in 1946, he began disappearing from America's dinner tables.

Now the bird on which the rooster cartoon character was modeled is among 66 types of old-fashioned chickens the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy is trying to save from extinction as factory-raised cross varieties command 90 percent of the market.

"When we can identify something in danger, we need to protect it," says Barbara Bowman of Sonoma County, an original board member of Slow Food USA who has a dozen of the last 510 Delaware breeding stock chickens in existence. "The old breeds provide really sturdy genetics that we have to guard."

Since the arrival of industrialized agriculture, more than 95 percent of vegetables that had been grown in the world have disappeared, according to the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture.

America's purebred chickens began a similar decline after World War II, when poultry producers, seeking to hold onto the market gained during wartime beef shortages, participated in the national "Chicken of Tomorrow" contest. The goal: a broad-breasted variety that could be mass produced quickly on minimal feed. A Cornish-Plymouth Rock cross dominates today.

Now the North Carolina-based Conservancy hopes to do with chickens what seed banks have done for heirloom vegetables.

"All of the other breeds lost their jobs because they couldn't grow as fast," said Marjorie Bender, the Conservancy's technical program director. "The marketplace only cared about how fast it grew and how big it got."

Unlike chicken bought by the bucketful, certified heritage chickens like the Leghorn must breed naturally, be able to live and forage outdoors, meet certain breed standards and not be genetically modified to grow with abnormally large breasts. If a human baby grew as quickly as a five-week factory fryer, he would weigh 349 pounds by age 2, a University of Arkansas study found.

The group hopes that its "heritage" seal of approval will alert consumers that the chicken or eggs come from birds with unique flavors and characteristics, the way organic labels indicate an absence of pesticides.

"To save them, we have to eat them," says Bender. "We are losing genetic diversity in our country's livestock."

At least 19 heritage breeds, such as the white Delaware with the mottled neck, the white-egg laying Holland and black mottled Houdan, have been designated as critically threatened, which means there are fewer than 500 left. Dozens of others are in danger of disappearing without a market to sustain them.

Maintaining genetic diversity in the food supply is the goal. Members already have a record of protecting asses, turkeys and some threatened breeds of cattle and horses, such as South Carolina's sturdy Marsh Tacky.

"The factory chickens we have now are all closely related," Bender said. "If we had millions of chicken houses decimated (by disease), we'd have to figure out how to resist that disease. Part of the answer is genetically based."

The move to preserve old-fashioned breeds of chickens might not have the backyard appeal of the Brandywine tomato or the Kentucky Wonder bean. But to gourmets, the idea is growing.

On his 42-acre Azalea Springs Farm in Napa County, Douglas Hayes doesn't have a single grape vine but he does have 40 endangered Buckeyes that have free range to pick grubs amid his heirloom fruit trees and vegetables — and another 80 fertilized eggs on the way.

"Good quality, high-flavor food has always been a part of my life," Hayes said.

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American Livestock Breeds Conservancy: http://www.albc-usa.org/