FILE PHOTO OF FAILLACE FAMILY MEMBERS ON VERMONT SHEEP FARM, 2000-07-19 (photo)

Sheep farmer Linda Faillace (L) and her 14-year-old daughter Heather (R) are comforted by a neighbor as representatives of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and their appraisers arrive on the Faillace's farm in East Warren, Vermont in this July 19, 2000 file photo. Agriculture officials may not have expected much resistance when they decided to seize and slaughter two flocks of Vermont sheep they suspected of carrying a neurological disorder related to the deadly brain-wasting mad cow disease. But a six-month legal battle has taught them just how greatly they underestimated the political skills and scientific knowledge of the flocks' owners, who have fought tooth and nail to avert the slaughter of their 350 dairy sheep imported in 1996 from Belgium. SV/