Disease transmission between egg farms

 

Some people wonder why diseases like avian influenza are allowed to infect so many birds on different properties. Well there is no mystery about it! Politicians have allowed highly intensive poultry facilities to be established. As a result of high production, the businesses are required to sell huge volumes of eggs through supermarkets. In order to keep their contracts, producers must guarantee supply and the only way they can do that is to purchase eggs from other producers. They stamp the eggs at their packing station and pretend they are their own brand. The eggs are then trucked off to the supermarkets and sold to unsuspecting consumers. This transfer of eggs between properties is a vector for the transmission disease from property to property and most of them also share workers.

Intensive egg production lobby

 Corporate egg producers are still trying to convince consumers that internsive production systems are good for hen welfare. Lobby group, Australian Eggs, is funding research aimed at countering views that confing chickens in sheds is detrimental for poultry. CCTV monitoring and artificial intelligence systems are being developed to track hen behaviour in sheds.

Researchers from the University of Technology, Sydney, a Victorian veterinary epiidemiologist and a Queensland Vet are developing the monitoring system which is expected to be ready by the end of this year.

Intensive food production systems meet fluctuating consumer demand

Quantity over quality is the rationale behind intensive production techniques in the food industry, whether it's eggs. meat, grains or vegetables.

Balancing supply with demand has always been as issue for small egg producers like us – particularly in an area which is a holiday destination. A boom in demand as holidaymakers descend on the region, followed by a slump when they return home has been a natural cycle of business since we started producing eggs. But now, we have the added problem of fluctuating Government travel restrictions in response to the Covid19 pandemic. Big producers with coolrooms full of stockpiled eggs, are able to cope without missing a beat – just load up the trucks and send eggs off to the stupidmarkets.

However, selling quality, fresh eggs, is rather more challenging as we have no stockpiles to plunder when customers need extra supplies. Theres is no question that intensive egg producers are better able to supply fluctuating market demands compared with boutique egg farms meeting niche market requirements. 

Poultry Hub warns about disease potential created by intensive egg production

The spread of disease through large flocks of poultry has been a farming issue for years and was one of the key reasons for introducing cages to allow for intensive egg production designed to meet demand.High outdoor stocking densities - such as the 10,000 hens per hectare approved by politicians in Australia is a recipe for disaster - not only for the hens but for food safety and the viability of farms. Details about poultry disease control have been published by the Poultry Hub http://www.poultryhub.org/health/health-management/ The article does not cover the additional problems of land sustainability, potential contamination of eggs sold to consumers as well as contamination of waterways and groundwater caused by high nutrient loads.

Egg farmers urged to use more chemicals

Australian Eggs is urging all free range poultry farmers to register to use a worming compound Flubendazole even though some studies have shown residues in egg. Australian Eggs claims that an increase in free range egg production has been accompanied by an increase in parasitic worm infestations, which negatively affects bird health. The reality is that there has not been an increase in free range production - just an increase in eggs labelled as 'free range' even though they are from intensive factory systems. Australian Eggs says"As there are limited anti-parasitic drugs available for use in laying hens, the industry is seeking to register an alternative drug, flubendazole, to treat currently untreatable parasitic worm infections". An application has been put forward to the AVPMA by Elanco, requesting the use of flubendazole across all free range laying hens. On those genuine free range properties where hens are at low stocking densities, there should be no significant worm burden problems. Minor infestations are easily treated with natural remedies. Problems are generally only found on the many intensive farms which masquerade as free range.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10435292

Intensive egg production causes big environmental damage

Egg production in Australia and throughout the world has increased in recent decades, and has reached an annual volume of 68 million tons worldwide. Australian production has hit 460 million dozen. The main reasons are that chicken eggs are a valuable source of protein and are also inexpensive.The huge demand for eggs has led to more intensive production, replacing traditional free range methods. This has resulted in serious environmental impacts. Those impacts will almost certainly increase with a high density outdoor stocking rate of 10,000 hens per hectare approved by Australian Ministers for Consumer Affairs. We need to encourage people to set up more small-scale free range farms to service their local areas to meet demand rather than concentrate on the corporate solution. Currently, about 7 million tons of eggs are produced each year in the European Union. Spain is one of the largest producers with 1,260 farms and an average of 67,700 chickens each. Together with France, Spain represents about 25 percent of European production, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and Environment. In addition, the production of eggs, like other intensive produce, generates negative effects on the environment, including the emission of greenhouse gases or the contamination of soil and water. It was not until the 1980s that intensive livestock farming began to be considered an environmental problem, and since then, few studies have focused on the impact of laying hen farms on the ecosystem. To determine the environmental implications of egg production in Europe, a team of Spanish researchers has taken as model an intensive poultry farm located in Asturias, with 55,000 laying hens and an annual production of more than 13 million eggs. The results are published in theJournal of Cleaner Production. Read more at https://phys.org/news/2018-04-environmental-footprint-egg-industry.html#jCp