Edible animals across Britain are reeling today from the hideous and unforeseen results of their latest abattoir avoidance scam.

As hundreds of carcasses are piled into ditches and set on fire with kerosene, many are laying the blame squarely on the doorstep of heifer #904, a young Fresian based in Norfolk.

“Yeah, let’s all pretend to get really sick with some contagious disease so nobody’ll want to eat us,” mocked a Lincolnshire sheep who has not been named. “Then maybe we’ll be allowed to wander free over hill and dale. That’ll work.”

“Stupid cow,” she added, bitterly.

Already, thousands of cows, sheep and pigs have paid for their deceptive folly with their lives as frantic farmers and MAFF officials carry out the biggest cull in recent memory. Over sixty farms have become involved in the affair, and the number increases exponentially as little bird messengers spread the word.

“We’ve set something in motion here, and now we can’t stop it,” said a representative of pigs in the south-west. “We’ve sent out other little bird messengers to try and stop the first set of little bird messengers, but I’m afraid it’s a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Or after it’s started pretending to have a horrible disease, in this case.”

Affected animals have discovered to their cost that although it is easy to convince a highly-qualified government vet that they are suffering from foot and mouth disease, faking a complete recovery is a different matter.

“Well, we did a bang-up job on the fake ulcers and so forth, had those MAFF guys completely fooled,” said the pig representative shortly before leaving for the killing field. “But even after we took everything off and start leaping around gaily and rolling in mud like it was the best day ever, still they want to wipe us all out. It’s a ‘precaution’ or something.”

Agriculture minister Nick Brown refused to put an end to the crisis, despite being informed that the outbreak is nothing more than a bovine ruse. In a leaked departmental memo, he writes: “We need to send a message to the country’s animals that we are not to be toyed with in this way. And besides, I’ve been on telly more in the last week than for the whole four years before this happened.”

Heifer #904 was unavailable for comment, having had a bolt put through her head on Thursday morning.