Foot-and-mouth facts

Total number of confirmed foot-and-mouth cases in the UK 1,762 - three on 18 June 3,353,000 animals slaughtered 8,254 premises with animals slaughtered or earmarked for slaughter

The British wool industry estimates it will lose �10m this year because of the crisis and prices have rocketed leading many clothing manufacturers to use foreign wool instead.

There are also worrying implications for the sheep which risk exhaustion and disease if they are not shorn.

Bureaucracy

There are normally 750 sheep shearers working in Britain during the summer season but this year the number is less than half that figure.

Many workers are being put off, not only because they fear taking the disease back to their own country, but because of the bureaucracy introduced in the wake of the outbreak.

Shearers are required to apply for two different types of licenses depending on whether he is working in an infected area or not.

Frank Langrish, of the British Wool Marketing Board, said although the licensing scheme was helping to control the disease, it was causing an enormous number of difficulties, especially in infected areas.

He said: "Shearers can only work in those infected areas and then have to wait seven days before they work outside of it."

Maggot risk

He said the wool industry was also suffering because any wool collected had to be stored in a depot for at least two months before it could be sold.

As well as being at risk of overheating and becoming entangled in hedges, unshorn sheep can become infested with maggots.

Agricultural contractor, Rob Morris, said: "If sheep are not shorn and they get dirty behind or they get rained on and then it becomes dry, the moisture in the wool attracts the blow flies.

"The blow flies then lay their eggs in the wool and these then hatch into maggots and the maggots will literally eat the sheep alive."