大象传媒

"There's nothing we could do about it, but somehow you do feel responsible and the farm becomes famous .. or infamous."

Richard Storer runs the Baylham House Rare Breeds Farm just outside Ipswich on the banks of the River Gipping. It'll re-open to visitors on Saturday 6 October - two weeks after the bluetongue cases became public knowledge.

The centre aims to preserve endangered breeds of livestock by breeding and selling them as breeding stock to other farms.听 Any surplus is sold for meat - the breeds won't survive unless they become commercially viable.

Mr Storer has spoken to 大象传媒 Radio Suffolk's Mark Murphy breakfast show and to 大象传媒 television's Look East:

"It's been one hell of a week for us, but we've come through it and hopefully it's all over now.

Richard Storer

"We noticed on the Sunday a week ago that Debbie the Highland cow was a bit tender on her feet, but on Monday she was dribbling from the nose and had a mark on an听 udder. These are all signs of foot and mouth so we called in our usual vet.

"We were told it wasn't foot and mouth, but as the symptoms persisted there were also lesions in her mouth and we had her examined again.

Eventually, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs came in and bluetongue was confirmed, Debbie was put down and every animal at the Rare Breeds Farm needed to be tested.

On Monday 24 September, another cow - an old Gloucester called Lorraine - was confirmed as having bluetongue. Testing was also being carried out on Baylham House's sheep which live up the A140 at Stonham Aspal.

Every animal has had to have blood samples taken. They're being tested at the government's Pirbright centre in Surrey.

Mr Storer is hoping it'll be business as usual at his popular Suffolk tourist attraction:听 "The support we've had from all over the world has been fantastic. I'm full of praise for the way the ministry has handled it on the ground. The police have been marvellous as well.

"We've just got to treat the whole thing philosophically. Our animals were clear when their blood samples were taken, but there may be infectious midges still flying around the area, so we've just got to keep checking our animals.

"We've been contacted by someone in Felixstowe who said they saw a swarm of midges or gnats coming in from the sea, so we'd all like to have more information about that."

For the full radio and video interviews with Richard Storer click on the links on this page.