Category: bird flu

It seems as though (touch wood!) the H5N8 bird flu outbreak across Europe is coming towards an end – at least that’s what is being said in France, arguably the country worst hit this winter. In England, Defra has a map of higher-risk and lower-risk areas which looks like it could win a prize for…

Farming Today has carried out what they call an investigation into backyard flocks of poultry that have not been housed despite this being the law. Their investigation appeared to consist of taking a phone call from a listener and then going and talking to someone.  I can’t say I’ve carried out an investigation but I…

I’ve been catching up on Pheasant rearing techniques now that the Pheasant shooting season has ended. There are four Pheasant-rearing facilities which are under Defra special measures in Lancashire at the moment, at three of which H5N8 bird flu has been detected. Defra keep using this phrase ‘There are links between them that pose a…

There has been another outbreak of bird flu in another turkey farm in Lincolnshire and another in another Pheasant farm in Lancashire.  We are told that bird flu is widespread in wild birds across the country and yet the cases affecting farms are well and truly clumped around commercial farms in two discrete but well-separated…

Bird flu has been confirmed in a Pheasant ‘farm’ near Preston, Lancashire says Defra. The Pheasant is a non-native species which is reared in captivity in the UK and released in its tens of millions into the UK countryside each year.  Millions of Pheasant poults are imported into the UK and these represent a risk…