Re: Bird Flu Controls
- From: " Jill" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 11:06:50 -0000
"Pat Gardiner" <patgardiner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dvglo1$2sa$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Europe agreed that ready-to-lay pullets, turkeys for fattening and other
poultry or farmed feathered game could be moved out of surveillance zones
15 days after an outbreak. A vet would have to give approval and the birds
would need to be kept under surveillance, away from other poultry.
While on the face of it this sounds daft, in practical terms it may not be
so bad as long as it means 15 days after the last signs of any virus
activity. This does not hide so easily in these species.
There is NO way to set up holding facilities for this number of birds. These
are in the hundreds of thousands at any one time.
The reasons for the movements are disease control - its good biosecurity
[and economics] to have hatcheries hatching, rearers rearing and then all
the birds to the end stage are on an all-in all-out system.
Any glitches in this flow of birds will create horrendous animal health
problems on an much larger scale than the pigs in CSF.
Most of the above scenarios are within countries, "relatively" confined
except for lorry accidents where birds get scattered across the motorway
:~(. Country to country "tends" to involve more eggs and chicks. These
should be stopped and the import of live birds also. Continental Europe will
have more problems in this case. They will have to decide how they deal with
the management problems.
Most of the situations above would be able to keep their birds inside at the
new premises for as long as it was needed. The stress of moving the birds
would bring out any latent disease. The only one which might well be more
difficult would be the farmed feathered game where many shoots put birds
straight out to open air pens. Presumably if these are under cover then they
would comply but it would be much more of a threat as there is a greater
potential to meet up with wild birds etc.
Its a compromise that I can understand even if epidimiologically it may be a
risky one. There are plenty of mistakes that can be made which could have
locally bad consequences.
The only other option would be wholesale slaughter for animal health
reasons. This may have to be considered for situations that involve birds
going from country to country. That would be far less acceptable but I fear
this would be included in the above guidelines to a lesser extent. The
economics of that would be collosal too.
This is a no win situation. Its going to have to be the best we can do in
the circumstances. Being organic is not going to make it any easier. An
organic rearer of young birds is still going to need to get them moved on
for the next batch to come in.
--
regards
Jill Bowis
Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk
.
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