Avian Flu

Update yesterday,5 March, on latest situation from YouGov. here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/avian-influenza-bird-flu
Not good news - still high to very high risk with many outbreaks.
 
The situation in North Yorkshire looks terrible. There can barely be a bird there that hasn't been culled, by the look of it. How awful.
 
Is this leading to an admission that avian flu is now endemic?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/13/uk-chickens-can-be-free-range-despite-never-going-outside-thanks-to-loophole
 
That's disgusting. Shops can sell meat as free range when they have no intention to ever let the animals free range at all? That's downright fraudulent. How am I supposed to buy genuinely free range meat for my husband???
 
I think surely we must be getting to the point where ‘living with avian flu’ is in the same class as ‘living with Covid’ i.e, ideally, best biosecurity possible, consistent with living a normal life.
I do wonder what proportion of people like us who keep a few hens in their garden even know about these regulations, let alone observe them. And sellers of chicken coops such as Omlet give would-be customers no idea of the regulations, still showing pics on their website of nice tidy chickens walking carefully over an immaculate suburban lawn ….


21168E24-F90B-462C-B112-AF0F93B3A860.jpeg

- but of course it’s different for commercial producers with hundreds of birds. They are never going to provide a comparable environment to what we give our birds.
 
I've just noticed some hens free ranging from my bedroom window, in the field behind my house. The neighbour lost her hens to a fox a few years ago and when the henhouse and attached run disappeared I thought they'd got rid of it. It looks as though they just moved it the other side of the stables and have acquired more hens. I also have a friend who has three birds which are not indoors. She isn't prepared to shut her birds in (a very small run) but is unlikely to spread bird flu to other poultry flocks as no-one else goes near her chickens and I know she doesn't go anywhere where chickens are kept. She knows about the regulations ...

If I ever have hens again I'm fortunate to have the space to build a big enough roofed run for 4 birds, although I have an ideal area at the bottom of the garden for free ranging but not for building a run as it's a "buffer strip" according to the plans and I don't own it.
 
That sounds a bit like the couple walking along a closed footpath during the foot and mouth outbreak. There were cattle along the raised bank and the nature reserve warden went up to them and said " did you not see the footpath closed signs when you came through the gate"

" Oh that's alright we can't give your cows foot and mouth, we are vegetarians"
 
Hooray! From May 2, poultry can be let outside if not in an infected zone.
Hens will be having a party! (It doesn’t say if they will need to wear masks, though.)
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/avian-influenza-bird-flu
 
doesn't say if they need to sanitize bugs 1st.

Ours were in a huddle today, just planning what to wreck first in the garden
 
WARNING -
THIS IS A SICKENING AVIAN FLU STORY ABOUT A MASS CULL OF INFECTED CAGED CHICKENS.
DO NOT OPEN THE LINK if you feel it might upset you.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/apr/28/egg-factory-avian-flu-chickens-culled-workers-fired-iowa
 
Thanks for the warning. I opened the link and immediately closed it when I realised it was the USA.

It worries me that American chicken will be imported now that EU Regulations are being repealed/ignored as the conditions in which they are kept are truly horrendous, hence the need to wash them in chlorine.
 
243 birds, gulls, ducks, geese found dead on fishing lakes 2 miles from us have all died from Avian flu.
Plus several hundred assorted wildfowl along the banks of the Thames. Not good news
 
Oh dear. I hope your birds stay safe, BYM.
Like Covid, in the absence of lockdown, avian flu has dropped out of the news, but it’s still virulent in wild birds.
 
That's dreadful BYM and much too close for comfort so fingers crossed for you.

It seems to be behaving in the same way as Covid - I was singing with a small choir at a special service last Sunday commemorating the victory of Owain Glyndwr over the English in 1402, and received an email yesterday that the person next to me has tested positive for Covid despite FOUR vaccinationa. I'm singing again tomorrow so will test myself later today ...
 
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