Many of the UK’s free-range chicken farms are expected to be shut down at any time. Farms that had been allowing their egg-laying hens access to the outdoors will be forced to keep them locked in sheds because of the threat of avian influenza.
In the past, cases dropped in summer but infections continued this year , with 3.5 million birds culled . Hundreds of thousands of seabirds are also believed to have died from the disease.
Experts
believe avian flu is now endemic
in
wild birds, creating a risk of infection all year round, and has a
greater ability to persist in the environment.
Avian flu
can be spread through infected body fluids and faeces, or via
contaminated feed, bedding and water – and even vehicles, clothing
and footwear. experts also point out that the movement of birds or
eggs and other material between poultry farms as a source of
infection. It
is the close confinement of chickens that allows the disease to
spread quickly so hens in Australia on genuine low-density free range
farms are not likely to encounter problems. Intensive ‘free range’
farms maximising production to supply supermarkets are the problem.
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