[BrimwoodFarm]

I challenged a neighbour about letting their chickens out because if theirs get bird flu mine will probably be destroyed as well.
He said that he had rung Defra and was told that as long as there had been no incidents within 30 miles then it was ok to let them out.
Anyone else heard anything like that?
On the Defra maps we are in one of the high risk areas.

Pretty certain that if you're in a high risk area, the chickens should not be out. I'm in one too and despite having NO incidents in this area, all my birds are still shut in. I'd be REALLY annoyed if someone close by was letting them out and putting my flock at risk too.

He might have phoned DEFRA - they have no idea what they're doing

[macgro7]

I was at services on the M4 earlier today, and got chatting to the trucker in front of me in the queue  for coffee.  He was bringing in a load of thousands of live chickens from Romania  for one of the big suppliers (i'm not saying which for obvious reasons)

So while all the back yard people are bending over backwards to keep up with whatever restriction defra like to place, big suppliers are importing live birds from an area where Bird Flu is endemic ... yeah that makes perfect sense.  (bangs head in frustration)

As I said way up thread , bird flu 2017  brought to you by the same geniuses who did such a great job of Foot and Mouth 2001

What kind of idiots would even allow that?

[Fleecewife]

We have a large red sign on our back gate - BIOSECURITY    DO NOT ENTER - plus a foot dip in a bright red bucket right in front of the gate.  Today the oil delivery came and our tank is a few yards inside the back gate.  We had spoken to the delivery company in advance for them to let the driver know he was to dip his feet.
So he arrived, squeezed past the foot dip without using it, opened the gate with the big sign on and marched straight through.  He didn't have a clue what I was talking about when I asked him to use the foot dip (a bit late I know but it was to make a point) and he was amazed when he went back and looked at the sign on the gate - he just hadn't seen it.  He probably would have missed the sign if it had been in flashing dayglo orange, with red stop lights.  So he had been making deliveries in a rural area, where there are plenty of poultry keepers, for three months without taking any precautions against transferring disease.  I'm sure he's not the only one, and I'm sure by his blank face when I was telling him about Bird 'flu that he won't remember a word when he makes his next delivery.
What can you do?  Just your best I suppose

[Charlie1234]

I have several local farmers that produce eggs for the supermarkets + when I asked my closest farmer today he told me he can let his 14,000 hens out if he wants to ??  This is what the Defra visitor told him 

[Marches Farmer]

I hope that the events of this Winter may prove of some small help to poultry keepers in the future:  large-scale poultry farms with multiple sites MUST improve biosecurity between production units; smaller scale keepers must have contingency plans in place for housing their flocks at fairly short notice. 

[harmony]

I was at services on the M4 earlier today, and got chatting to the trucker in front of me in the queue  for coffee.  He was bringing in a load of thousands of live chickens from Romania  for one of the big suppliers (i'm not saying which for obvious reasons)

So while all the back yard people are bending over backwards to keep up with whatever restriction defra like to place, big suppliers are importing live birds from an area where Bird Flu is endemic ... yeah that makes perfect sense.  (bangs head in frustration)

As I said way up thread , bird flu 2017  brought to you by the same geniuses who did such a great job of Foot and Mouth 2001

What kind of idiots would even allow that?

The idiots who have done the risk assessments.


Whilst we are all getting in a flap over a few birds there is a poultry industry out there trying to keep its head above water and I am afraid that means replacement birds in their thousands. 

[harmony]

I challenged a neighbour about letting their chickens out because if theirs get bird flu mine will probably be destroyed as well.
He said that he had rung Defra and was told that as long as there had been no incidents within 30 miles then it was ok to let them out.
Anyone else heard anything like that?
On the Defra maps we are in one of the high risk areas.

Pretty certain that if you're in a high risk area, the chickens should not be out. I'm in one too and despite having NO incidents in this area, all my birds are still shut in. I'd be REALLY annoyed if someone close by was letting them out and putting my flock at risk too.

He might have phoned DEFRA - they have no idea what they're doing

No-one can let their poultry out unless they meet guidelines. You can let your poultry into netted areas in a high risk area as long as you meet the guidelines or you can opt to keep them in.

[big soft moose]

I get that the industry needs thousands of replacement birds but why import them from the east where birdflu is wide spread ... money of course is the answer, importing romanian chickens is cheaper than breeding british chickens QED , never mind if you import a contagious disease, because you can just blame it on wild birds...

[harmony]

Can you get the replacements from this country in enough numbers? Yes, money is a big factor. Margins are tight for poultry farms and they just got tighter since bird flu.


Animals are imported and exported all the time. People move around too from places with contagious diseases.


Are you seriously saying bird flu isn't transmitted by wild birds and they are just being blamed?

[ColinS]

Are you seriously saying bird flu isn't transmitted by wild birds and they are just being blamed?

It rather depends who you ask - this recent paper is one of several that cast doubt on the role of wild birds:-

http://www.cms.int/sites/default/files/Scientific%20Task%20Force%20on%20Avian%20Influenza%20and%20Wild%20Birds%20H5N8%20HPAI_December%202016_FINAL.pdf

 “The specific role of wild birds particularly in the long-distance transmission of the virus, if existent, remains unclear. ”

[big soft moose]

No, i'm saying that its insane to be importing birds from a known reservoir of bird flu into large commercial poultry farms, whilst at the same time going to great effort to stop infection from wild birds where the risk of infection is much lower in the latter case than it is in the former.

At the end of the day is a chicken in an enclosed shed more likely to get bird flu from a passing duck or from an infected chicken in the next run ?

Just like the turkeys from Hungary thing last time round.

At the end of the day its all about money - its cheaper to import birds than it is to breed them here (they could be bred here if there was a market for them) but that would mean more expensive eggs and more expensive 'cheap' meat - and the fact that defra let them do this shows a lack of commitment to actual containment of the disease

[harmony]

Are you seriously saying bird flu isn't transmitted by wild birds and they are just being blamed?

It rather depends who you ask - this recent paper is one of several that cast doubt on the role of wild birds:-

http://www.cms.int/sites/default/files/Scientific%20Task%20Force%20on%20Avian%20Influenza%20and%20Wild%20Birds%20H5N8%20HPAI_December%202016_FINAL.pdf

 “The specific role of wild birds particularly in the long-distance transmission of the virus, if existent, remains unclear. ”

It still remains that the virus passes between wild and domestic birds whether you discount the long distance transmission theory.

[harmony]

No, i'm saying that its insane to be importing birds from a known reservoir of bird flu into large commercial poultry farms, whilst at the same time going to great effort to stop infection from wild birds where the risk of infection is much lower in the latter case than it is in the former.

At the end of the day is a chicken in an enclosed shed more likely to get bird flu from a passing duck or from an infected chicken in the next run ?

Just like the turkeys from Hungary thing last time round.

At the end of the day its all about money - its cheaper to import birds than it is to breed them here (they could be bred here if there was a market for them) but that would mean more expensive eggs and more expensive 'cheap' meat - and the fact that defra let them do this shows a lack of commitment to actual containment of the disease

I can see your concern about the importation but I am guessing that many thousands of birds have been imported since the first UK case and we have yet to see a rapid increase in cases. Also where is the link between imported birds and those backyard flocks and the pheasant hatchery.

[big soft moose]

I don't doubt that the backyard flocks and the pheasant hatchery got it from wild birds - but thats not really the point.

Defra arent putting these measures in place to protect small backyard flocks - they don't in all honesty give a good toss about those,  the point of all these precautions is to stop bird flu becoming endemic in the uk because of the impact that would have on the poultry industry

so you have to wonder why we are bothering if the poultry industry then decide to import thousands of potentially infected birds from over seas

[Black Sheep]

Looking at the latest DEFRA update here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/598511/uoa-avian-flu-europe-update12.pdf

The map shows Romania not having much more in terms of outbreaks than the UK. Germany and Poland look much worse. So if we're importing maybe it isn't such a bad source!

Given that large scale poultry farms aren't likely to mix recently arrived birds with existing flocks, especially under the current measures, I wonder whether transmission like this is any more likely than transmission from other routes? Indeed, even if there were lots of UK stocks, would it be any less risky moving those from site to site looking at the spread of UK cases? I've not seen anything suggesting that the UK outbreaks were linked to imported birds. So based on the information available it would seem unjustified to suggest DEFRA aren't committed to limiting spread because they permit imports to continue.

The point about protecting an industry is probably very valid. Yet the reality is that it is we consumers (not necessarily us discussing here, but wider society) who want cheap meat drive prices down which ultimately leads to compromise somewhere.