FARMERS across the region have been forced to destroy lambs after an incorrect dose of vitamins was added to a milk replacement product.
The milk is given in automatic feeders to orphaned lambs or those whose mothers had triplets and cannot cope with feeding them all.
Moves are now underway to compensate the farmers who have had to destroy animals that were fed the milk.
Seahouses farmer Scott Smith, 74, said dozens of farmers across the region have been affected. He lost 31 lambs which had fed from a rogue batch of milk.
He said: “At a young age, their eyes and faces starting swelling and their hair came off. We immediately got on to it and we injected them with penicillin. That seemed to do the trick but the damage had been done internally to the tissue and their organs.
“It affected their growth and there was really no way back. The decision was taken to humanely destroy the lot.”
Mr Smith, who lost his entire stock during the 1966 foot-and-mouth outbreak, added: “To see this a second time was very upsetting.
“The lambs were next to the side of the road and people got to know them pretty well and the pet lambs of course responded. There were many tears; it was a very distressing time. This was very upsetting indeed, especially as you’d got to know them almost personally.”
Excessive vitamin A is poisonous to lambs and affects their development. It causes them to grow with deformed limbs and short, stiff necks and spines.
