Feeding the new industrial knitwear centres (mostly in China - which last year took possession of 53,000 new knitting machines - and Tirupur in India) are 107m sheep in Australia, 70 per cent providing merino wool, which, along with cashmere, is the yarn of choice. Feeding the new industrial knitwear centres (mostly in China - which last year took possession of 53,000 new knitting machines - and Tirupur in India) are 107m sheep in Australia, 70 per cent providing merino wool, which, along...

Swiss police are investigating after a flock of 90 sheep vanished from a remote Alpine pasture - for the second time. A baffled police spokesman admitted: "The only way to the pasture is by a remote track - the sheep were not driven away as there was no foot prints, nor was a lorry driven to the meadow. It is the second time in a year that the flock has vanished, leaving no traces of their whereabouts. Mystery of the vanishing sheep. This is different to using your own browser bookmarks...

Cattle cannot do this, but sheep transmit a related disease called scrapie between themselves, apparently when they eat placentas and other birthing remains in the field. And because the symptoms of BSE in sheep resemble scrapie, mad sheep might not have been noticed. But if the study shows the infection spreads more generally within the flock, that means BSE could still be lurking in Europes sheep, possibly posing a greater health risk to people than that from mad cows. BSE-infected sheep...

Authorities on Monday morning culled up to 300 goats and sheep from the two farms in the southern district of Larnaca, a farming intensive area dotted with pig and cattle farms. We are a very small country and all farms are next to each other. Authorities were puzzled at an apparent false alarm in late October, when tests on another flock of sheep showing suspect symptoms came up positive, but EU test results were negative. Vets maintained a quarantine over the first suspect farm because...

Mr Howard famously gave her a hug during the previous election campaign, but today protective services officers kept the sheep and her minder from Mr Howard on his daily morning walk in Sydney. Police waylaid the pair by asking them for identification and making the sheep remove her head, but they were back at the gates of Kirribilli House when the Prime Minister finished his walk. PETA's call for an international boycott of Australian wool in 2004 won support from leading US retailers and...