[vfr400boy]

I drive a lorry for a living been high up I can nosey in every ones gardens and over fences hedges ect, the amount of birds I see still free range is mad even seen hens on the side of the road scratching about, and pigeons flying from lofts , can these people get fined ? Seems silly keeping my birds in when so many other people aren't

[in the hills]

A lot of people around here never kept them in at all

A lot of people who started off keeping them in have now given up and let them out thinking it pointless seeing that so many were out. That and the fact that there are hundreds of pheasants everywhere anyway.

In fact folk are looking at me sympathetically when I tell them that mine are still in!

So, you are not alone.

[in the hills]

Please check out DEFRA page for update of biosecurity measures for when the current prevention zone measures expire on the 28th.

Off to read it again. Can't quite get my head around it.

[in the hills]

Blimey, this seems to be valid for England. Will have to wait for the Welsh Assembly version. I hope it's clearer than this one.

[madchickenlady]

Just read the guidance for future measures - clear as mud! I have a hundred foot (ish) long by twelve foot wide natural pond, which extends into the neighbours garden, exactly how do I net this especially as it has half a dozen resident mallards living on it and a pair of moor hens? Looks to me like my lot are in for permanent incarceration. To rub salt in the wound others around me have never shut theirs in 

[Marches Farmer]

Quite a few Mallards would like to take up residence on our farm pond but we don't want them as they churn up the water and make life impossible for the Great Crested Newts that breed in it.  We scare them off every time we go past it and after a week or so they decide they don't want to live somewhere people clap their hands, chase them off and generally make life unpleasant.

[in the hills]

It does actually state walking the 'range', particularly with dogs as a means of keeping wild birds away.

Sorted. 2 dogs plus 3 cats. We are okay. 

[harmony]

I think the guidelines are quite clear. There are options to let your birds out. However, it will be such a job to meet the criteria you'll keep them in anyway! Job done!

[ColinS]

they decide they don't want to live somewhere people clap their hands, chase them off and generally make life unpleasant.

Wish the herons here were so easily put off. Initially I had success in scaring them away but more recently they have become very persistent and increasingly contemptuous of my efforts. Apparently laser scarers are very effective but rather expensive.

[pharnorth]

Well I am now close to culling my few  And chickens due to the impact on my  should the flu hit. But before I take the drastic step can anyone explain to me why when this Avian flu strain has no impact on human health or the food chain we are taking these draconian measures?

[ColinS]

But before I take the drastic step can anyone explain to me why when this Avian flu strain has no impact on human health or the food chain we are taking these draconian measures?

A fair question! Perhaps the biosecurity needs a re-think anyway. We have seen only minor occurrences in the wild - about the worst being 9 swans at a swannery where, I understand, no further cases have been found despite the understandable close scrutiny. Other isolated cases at other waterfowl sanctuaries also don't seem to have been followed by subsequent cases and certainly no mass deaths. However, we have seen outbreaks in closely packed turkey farms and what seems to have been an intensive game-bird operation. If, as some have suggested, the H5Nx strains are now aerosol-borne and infect via the respiratory system it seems to me that a tin shed full of hexagonally close packed turkeys is, to such a virus, what an A-bomb is to neutrons. Assemble the super-critical mass, pop in the neutron/virus-laden aerosol and watch it explode. It would explain how such a high proportion of the turkeys in those farms reportedly died of AI before it was even confirmed. As the density of virus-laden aerosol could reach huge levels before clinical signs became obvious it could make sure the entire flock got a lethal dose. Where birds are not so densely packed it seems to peter out. 

Perhaps it is the shear intensity of some poultry operations that makes AI a problem.

[harmony]

Well I am now close to culling my few  And chickens due to the impact on my  should the flu hit. But before I take the drastic step can anyone explain to me why when this Avian flu strain has no impact on human health or the food chain we are taking these draconian measures?

Could you enlarge on the possible pig impact please [member=30154]pharnorth[/member] ?


I understand pigs can test positive to AF and if they have it they will be culled and not paid for. Those without would not be culled.


Thanks.

[pharnorth]

We are not in, but close to areas deemed ''higher risk'. My concern is the movement and licence restrictions that start to apply to pigs once you get into a surveillance zone.  You can 'not move pigs on or off premises where poultry captive birds are kept without a licence'. Somehow I don't think my weaners would get a licence.

My current risk assessment is that my 2 outdoor kept Berkshire pigs are at greater risk from the now multiple migrating birds than the 5 poor Indian Runners I have cooped up.  But I am reluctant to either a) net the pond to give them more freedom and so increase risk of infection or b) keep them indefinitly with no more than a car tyre full of head dipping water.

So in the law of diminishing returns the odds are stacking up.

[harmony]

We are not in, but close to areas deemed ''higher risk'. My concern is the movement and licence restrictions that start to apply to pigs once you get into a surveillance zone.  You can 'not move pigs on or off premises where poultry captive birds are kept without a licence'. Somehow I don't think my weaners would get a licence.

My current risk assessment is that my 2 outdoor kept Berkshire pigs are at greater risk from the now multiple migrating birds than the 5 poor Indian Runners I have cooped up.  But I am reluctant to either a) net the pond to give them more freedom and so increase risk of infection or b) keep them indefinitly with no more than a car tyre full of head dipping water.

So in the law of diminishing returns the odds are stacking up.

Yes, I think we are the same in terms of the higher risk area.


Are these "licences" different to a normal movement licence then?

[harmony]

There is nothing on either the BPA or eaml2 site about licencing pigs from within a AV protection zone or the new proposed zone. I have asked both about the current and pending situation.