With the news of a highly virulent form of Avian flu spreading in coastal populations of wild birds, the need for a clear plan for poultry farmers has never been more acute. Much like Covid-19, bird flu has gone through a number of mutations, and the current H5N1 strain impacting birds across the country has proven to be highly infectious in both wild and domestic birds. Unfortunately, with the high vitality of this strain, James Ashworth of the Natural History Museum has said that “Thousands of seabirds are dropping dead from bird flu at some of the UK’s most important seabird colonies”.
Government agencies, including DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) have been accused of being slow to react, according to RSPB England Operations Director, Jim Wardill “Action must be taken now, with UK governments leading on developing and implementing national response plans for HPAI (highly pathogenic avian influenza) in wild birds. It is vital to have a coordinated approach to surveillance and testing, disturbance minimisation and public messaging, along with a joined-up strategy regarding arrangements for the poultry sector.”
Public spending watchdogs have also raised concerns over the state of the UK’s main laboratory, pointing out that the main veterinary base has deteriorated making it “no longer fit for purpose”. This has however, encouraged £1.4 billion worth of funding, to allow the facility to attract the best scientific talent and improve the entire facility.
£1.5 million worth of funding has also been awarded to a research team at the Animal and Plant Health Agency to help them develop new strategies to deal with future outbreaks. Whilst this is welcome, as we’ve seen with Covid-19, this amount of money can appear minor when it comes to fighting a rapidly spreading disease.
The risks to poultry owners is clear as precedents illustrate. Between 1996 and 2008, 11 outbreaks of HPAI were recorded affecting poultry in the millions. Farmers across the UK have had to be continually aware over this season, and hoping that the disease finally comes to an end, or that Government agencies coordinate a suitably robust response that incorporates both wild birds and poultry to minimise the risk of transmission.
What this does highlight however, is that poultry owners must clearly take individual responsibility for their own biosecurity.
After all, using care homes in the pandemic as an analogy, many argue that controversial governmental advice did not have the best interest of care homes at heart and having a sound pandemic strategy in-house including sourcing their own PPE supplies and refusing to take in untested hospital patients might have benefited many care homes.
The key to keeping poultry (domesticated birds kept for the production of either meat or eggs) safe lies in biosecurity. Those keeping smaller flocks of under 50 birds are not obliged to register with DEFRA, but are encouraged to do so voluntarily to allow them to be contacted in the event of an outbreak. Thereafter, the biggest risk a poultry keeper can incur is failing to implement an adequate biosecurity plan. The help of biosecurity experts who specialise in livestock protection can be an excellent way of helping poultry owners mitigate against the risk of outbreaks.
Prevention in the context of Avian flu and poultry is the best way to minimise the risk of being impacted by an outbreak. Nobody wants to be forced into a cull scenario and in the event of an outbreak a poultry keeper’s reputation can be chronically damaged and local farms affected by subsequent measures.
“Only through the implementation of a comprehensive biosecurity approach can poultry owners best protect their precious livestock.” Julian Sparrey, founder of Livetec Systems. With this in mind, it is vital that poultry owners maintain excellent flock management, discourage scavenging and the sharing of watercourses with wild birds, maintain high standards of hygiene and practice diligent record-keeping, including medicine books, vet correspondence, visitor and vehicle logs as well as the origin of any new birds and supplies.
Companies like Livetec have an important role to play in the ability of poultry owners to put together both effective and sustainable biosecurity practices which allows them to keep their livestock safe from the potentially disastrous effects of bird flu. Livetec are well known within the industry as leaders in on-farm biosecurity and people across the entire farming industry turn to them for help with their poultry.
Their primary focus involves putting protective measures in place so that farmers hopefully never have to take devastating steps, such as emergency depopulation. The team at Livetec have vast experience across such areas as research and development, animal welfare and farming and are well versed in all the latest policy recommendations and legislation. Taking this knowledge and experience they are able to apply it to workable, practical science-based solutions for farm businesses across the UK.
