A FARMER's wife who saw the entire stock of the farm slaughtered is making her own bid to rise above the foot and mouth outbreak.

Lorraine Hunt, of Orchard Cottage Farm, Croome Road, Defford, is reopening Nippers, the baby shop she runs from a converted barn on the farm and which has been closed since the epidemic started.

Because the farm is next to a farm where foot and mouth was confirmed, Mrs Hunt and her husband Chris and his brothers Patrick and Julian were forced to stand by as their four-and-a-half thousand pigs, 25 cattle and 50 sheep were culled.

The pigs comprised a high health breeding herd of Duroc and Landrace and Mrs Hunt said: "We were producing 2-3,000 young breeding females a year for herds around the country, so they were rather special. We were being checked every 48 hours and every day that went by we thought we would be all right, but then we were told that they would have to go.

"We appealed but didn't get anywhere and all the stock went. It is tragic, it really is."

She said: "I am determined this is not going to get us down and now that we are able to use the drive again after the clean-up I am reopening the shop I have been running for the past seven years."

As for restocking, Mrs Hunt said: "We could start again after getting the all-clear on the clean up but we don't want to risk it and so shall wait until after the outbreak has been stamped out."