Foot-and-Mouth Fears Take Fun Out of Farm Days

Ag Days in Sonoma and Marin counties have long provided city children with the opportunity to see and touch farm animals.

But pigs, horses, and other animals with hooves have been banned from this week’s events because of a concern over foot-and-mouth disease.

Although the illness hasn’t reached the United States, nobody wants to take a chance.

A foot-and-mouth outbreak is plaguing Europe, and thousands of healthy animals have been slaughtered in an attempt to keep the illness from spreading.

“Federal and state agricultural officials say we can’t be too cautious in trying to prevent this disease from getting here,” Judy James, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, said Monday in announcing that cows, pigs, sheep, goats and horses would not be part of the festivities.

The virus affects cattle, hogs, sheep and goats, as well as deer, causing death or debilitating blisters around the mouth, muzzle, udders and feet of livestock with split, or cloven, hooves.

“It won’t be much of an Ag Day without the cows, sheep, goats and pigs. That’s what the children really love to see,” said Saralee Kunde, who founded the event more than 20 years ago to provide children with a glimpse of farm life.