More Mad Cow Precautions Here

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says at least 21 cattle held under quarantine in Texas will soon be euthanized as part of a plan to ease concerns that some might be infected with mad cow disease.

The cows, imported four years ago from Germany for breeding, were isolated when the outbreak of mad cow disease erupted in Europe, officials said. Soon after, the U.S. banned the import of cattle and meat products from the European Union.

Animals already in the United States were quarantined.

Contaminated feed is believed to cause the illness in cattle. None of the cattle in Texas has shown any symptoms of the disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Originally, 29 cows were shipped to Texas, and USDA officials said none of those that died had the disease.

Within the next few weeks, the rest will no longer be a concern, an official with the Texas Animal Health Commission said.

"They will be euthanized, there is no question of that," agency spokeswoman Carla Everett told the Bryan-College Station Eagle. "The only question is when. It will be this spring."

Many of the cattle brought to Texas are exotic and expensive, she said, and owners did not want to sell them for the $2,000-a-head price offered by the USDA.

Because the cattle showed no symptoms of illness, they were not seized. Subsequently, the National Cattlemans Beef Association has raised funds to meet fair market value, which was determined by a professional appraiser.

"They have raised somewhere around $57,000, so between that and the $2,000 each, the deal (to destroy the cattle) is nearly done," Everett said.

Brain tissue from each animal will be sent for testing to the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa.

At the time when the cattle arrived in Texas for years ago, eight were imported to Colorado and one in California. They were destroyed and tested. All had negative results for BSE. The cattle are owned by several people in Texas, but officials would not specify where in the state.

Lelve Gayle, associate agency director for the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab at Texas A&M University, said the quarantine restrictions are imposed only when federal authorities consider them necessary.

"They don't crack down real hard unless they've got a good reason to do so," he said.

The quarantined animals were allowed to mingle with other cattle, said Hallie Pickhardt, a spokeswoman with the USDA.

"Even if they tested positive, there is no danger of them spreading the disease just by standing next to another cow," she said. "The only way this disease can be spread is by eating contaminated feed."

The owners, Larry and Linda Faillace, had ought to keep their flock, urging officials to first complete tests on a flock of 234 sheep confiscated Wednesday from a farm in Greensboro, Vt. Their request was denied.

The government says some of the sheep may have been exposed to mad cow disease through contaminated feed before they were imported from Europe in 1996.

The Greensboro flock arrived at the lab Thursday. Lab workers began killing the sheep and taking brain samples Friday.

Four of those sheep had earlier tested positive for transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, or TSE, a family of diseases that includes both mad cow disease, and scrapie, a common sheep disease that doesn't affect humans.

Nearly 100 people in Europe have died of a human form of mad cow disease since 1995, but no cases have been confirmed in the United States.

Testing at the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames will determine which of the TSE strains the sheep contracted.