AVIAN INFLUENZA - Bird Flu

Avian influenza is a concern for us all. It looks likely that it will be for many years to come. It can be a worry but only if we are unprepared. With some careful thought our birds will be fine and we can learn to live with it.

With the irresponsible reporting by parts of the media, it is easy to get scared by what is happening but its important to maintain some composure and to read through all the media hype and generalisations so we can react appropriately for our birds. As one of the better experts says - we have to make proportionate responses, we will be living with this problem for many years to come now its been allowed to travel around the globe.

What can you do for your birds? The most important thing is not to panic. The risk to the UK is still low.
It is important to look carefully at the means by which the virus can reach us and not be led by hysterical news personnel and their ear-catching extravagant vocabulary. The highest risk areas will be the areas in association with commercial poultry activity for some time to come. Obviously, since the sad news of the identification of H5N1 in the Mute Swans in Dorset, we, like many other countries in the rest of Europe, may have isolated outbreaks involving wild birds too.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO BE PREPARED FOR THE INEVITABLE - the advantage is that this will also provide your birds with more shelter all year around for which they will be very glad in our increasingly variable climate.
Outbreaks have been seen throughout Europe involving small localised flocks of wild birds this year but the virus has still not spread into the general domestic / commercial bird population around these, due to swift and serious shutdown actions. There have been a number of industrial boo-boos clearly, like that in England in recent years. These are much more preferable to any infection by a wild bird population. A mistake by a major commercial unit is usually easy to contain in-house and is little more than an inconvenience to those around, who are well prepared for the situation. Having the infection gallivanting around in a wildfowl population is more problematic depending on the concentration of poultry in the immediate area. I have set up a google map which has some of the incidents located.

It is time to get yourself PREPARED though - birds need and enjoy shelter anyway and it is the best defence against bird flu - it makes sense to get wheels in motion sooner rather than have to panic when something happens in your neck of the woods.
There are plenty of solutions - here are a couple click on the picture to see more details

What is required is to have somewhere your birds can live happily where no droppings can fall in from overhead and no small birds can share their space through the sides. Obviously the weldmesh on all our houses is ideal but a staple gun and garden windbreak netting and a tarpaulin can also be used very effectively.
When you are looking to replace a henhouse make sure its bigger than your birds need so that any time they are confined to barracks, whether due to too much rain, too much sun or a lockdown situation, they have plenty of floor space each. Most occupancy figures for housing gives night time roosting rates, not "sulking inside all day" figures.
- Very few waterfowl migrate here in the spring, but the autumn is more a time of concern, increasingly so if more populations of Northern European waterfowl are infected. Industrial incidents can be any time of the year. During the winter there can be issues involving birds from the continent being driven to our shores in times of deep cold and bad weather over there. These will be the highest risk birds as they are starving and can be sick.

- There is no evidence that the smaller bird species which come from various parts of the world are carriers in the same way.
- There is a much greater risk from infected commercial birds. There are millions of day olds moving around Europe all the time. Many of the grandparent stocks of our large commercial hybrid flocks live in continental Europe. Millions of young birds and eggs are moved around all the time. However their biosecurity measures are very very tight. They have a lot to lose.
- One journalist who phoned during one outbreak wanted to know if we felt that we should be banning all live commercial imports from Europe. She had no answer when I asked if she wanted to still have eggs on the supermarket shelves in the months to come. She had not done her homework so did not know that much of the parent stocks of the 150 million birds laying in the UK come from Europe.
- In parts of the southern reaches of Russia and the old USSR states there have been significant infection and practises such as using poultry manure on fields without testing will increase the risk to the grazing birds who pass through their territory. Unfortunately this area is also where European arctic migrants will pass through going north and east this spring and then back south and west this autumn.
However the likelihood of there being anything more than isolated outbreaks as has been seen in all of the western European countries is still very very low. It is still a time to enjoy your birds, to be planning your breeding, and it is ABSOLUTELY not the time to confine them permanently as I have heard some people doing. We are going to have to learn to cope with this for years probably.
When you need to lockdown -- you will be told! The easiest way is to register with the National Poultry Register, they email us all within a few hours of any situation and keep us well informed.
Free range birds hate confinement and its very hard to maintain high health conditions. We need to limit this to only absolutely essential times and to make that environment as stress free as possible.

Its much more important to PLAN to have somewhere they can go to or a conversion to their existing accommodation to be compliant for any temporary shut down that may become necessary in the future. Its vital to be good Boy Scouts "Be Prepared" but not to panic and cause massive animal welfare issues unnecessarily. I have heard of people forcing their birds into pens all the time when they have perfectly safe gardens and paddocks to range in.

The aim, in a lockdown situation, is to prevent contact between your birds and wild birds and their droppings.

A run that is covered to prevent wild bird droppings coming in from outside and has sides that no wild birds can get in.

All the houses and runs we sell have close weldmesh so are compliant. The only thing you need to do should, heaven forbid, your birds are required to be confined, is to cover the run top with plastic. As the run lids all come off this is very easy to do.
We have a covered run which will have lots of other uses throughout the year now. This is a GREAT grower unit for chicks and table birds.

If you don't have a fixed run you may need to think a little laterally.

Its the perfect time to buy a polytunnel !!! - you think I am joking? What better? You can enjoy more of the outdoors and the production of quality, full tasting juicy vegetables or exotic flowers but IF - IF - you have to find somewhere for your birds in a hurry you simply move them inside complete with house. Buy a white cover for the tunnel - this makes it cooler in the heat of the summer. Also arrange the ends so you can replace them with full netting panels to allow a really good air flow.
So make sure your poultry house is mobile and fit enough to move, if necessary.

Most of the features are not a bad thing to have anyway. Birds like shelter - if you live in the hot parts of the country and have to use a plastic get a white one. Again the horticultural suppliers are the best places for this - white polytunnel plastic makes the tunnel cooler in the heat than outside as its reflected away. Onduline roof sheeting is ideal for a "carport" style fitting beyond the house. This provides a shady, dry place for food and water all the year around. Alternatives are to have a tarpaulin large enough to cover a raspberry cage, to have the fine green garden netting available to staple to an existing car port,

The other important requirements are to feed and water indoors. This requires more thought for ducks and geese as they have a greater water requirement. If we can help take a look here for our range of feeders and drinkers. We have stocks in hand for immediate despatch.

Different parts of the country will have varying degrees of risk - each autumn from this one on we may get outbreaks as the migrating waterfowl return; areas where you have concentrations of industrial poultry are clearly at higher risk of lockdown incidents.
Here on the west coast of Scotland the potential carrier birds come predominantly from the west where there is no infection at all as yet; and we have no large commercial grower /layer units. This means in this region there is even less risk at present.
In places in England there are going to be known popular haunts of birds which will have a much higher risk of being infected. It is behoves on each of us to weigh up our own areas risk factors and prepare ourselves accordingly.

Higher risk areas may well be involved in lockdowns more often in the years to come, so you will want to be more imaginative with your covered areas and your management strategies.
Those of us on the West Coast should have pretty good covered facilities or have our houses well understocked to compensate for the fact that we can get the equivalent conditions thrown at us by the weather. It can easily rain for weeks on end resulting in the birds being in for most of the time.

The situation can change rapidly at times and I may well not be able to keep this up to date but there are lots of sources of such information - DEFRA and SEERAD sites being the most important.
There will still be major parts of the UK which will still be very low risk. Hopefully with consideration the powers that be will take all factors into account in making their proclamations. But its good to be prepared for national temporary lock down if that is deemed appropriate, sometime in the future.

Tim and Jill Bowis
Kintaline Mill Farm, Benderloch, OBAN Argyll PA37 1QS Scotland
all images are copyright, do not use without express permission and links back to this site.

01631 720223

Read Our Guestbook! | Please Sign Our Guestbook!