[Perris]

if he replies, this offers more grist for your mill
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/06/bird-flu-an-urgent-warning-to-move-away-from-factory-farming
the rules should be different for backyard operations with any non-commercial breeds, as they are for game and the handful of breeds and holdings registered as rare with defra. It is crass idiocy to impose the same rules on us as on factory farms. They can't recreate genes by fiat.

[Fleecewife]

Have either of you  @Marches Farmer and @Perris been in contact with the RBST? I have fallen out with them about something else but in response to F&M years ago they set up the Rare Breeds Gene Bank for sheep, cattle and horses, collecting semen from random livestock specimens at great expense (each sheep for example had to go to a collection centre for a month!. Many rare breeds of poultry come under the banner of the RBST so rather than/as well as fighting on your own you could get the weight of the RBST behind you.

[Perris]

thanks @Fleecewife but I am more interested in preserving the lives of living birds and allowing natural immunity to develop than in contributing a handful of birds' dna to a gene bank, which is a sort of biological museum. Nice idea, but I think evolution is better, in theory and definitely in practice.

[Marches Farmer]

I've been a member of RBST for decades and contacted the CEO a couple of times on the subject this year.  I don't doubt they're doing their best but "official channels" always make me suspect the memo is sitting in the Pending tray of a junior clerk somewhere in Whitehall.  Knowing the gene bank problems with collecting unrelated genetics for cattle, sheep and pigs I doubt there would be much appetite for relatively low value (in commercial terms) poultry.

Sometimes you have to shout to be heard - with four more outbreaks today I think this may one of those times.

[Fleecewife]

I've been a member of RBST for decades and contacted the CEO a couple of times on the subject this year.  I don't doubt they're doing their best but "official channels" always make me suspect the memo is sitting in the Pending tray of a junior clerk somewhere in Whitehall.  Knowing the gene bank problems with collecting unrelated genetics for cattle, sheep and pigs I doubt there would be much appetite for relatively low value (in commercial terms) poultry.

Sometimes you have to shout to be heard - with four more outbreaks today I think this may one of those times.

The CEO?  If you're over 50, don't hold your breath waiting for action from someone who dismisses older folk as 'unwanted on journey'.