Our Yorkshire Farm: Amanda's son outlines bird flu 'worries'
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Poultry farmers have raised the alarm over the UK outbreak of Avian flu, which has already killed half of Britain’s free-range turkeys, raising serious concerns over the supply at Christmas amid fears of a “big, big shoratge”. The British Poultry Council told MPs on the environmental audit committee yesterday that around 600,000 of Britain’s 1.2 million free-range turkeys produced annually have died as the country grapples with the worst-ever outbreak of the disease.
An estimated 1.6 million birds have been culled amid the outbreak, with free-range farms are especially vulnerable as their turkeys roam around in the open. This means they can more easily catch the disease from wild birds.
Richard Griffiths, the poultry council chief executive, said: “Free-range particularly has been hit very, very hard.”
Paul Kelly, a poultry farmer, told MPs: “There will be a big, big shortage of free-range British turkeys this year.”
The UK has been suffering from the worst Bird flu outbreak in history for over a year, the disease which poses a huge threat to the lives of farmed animals. Like turkeys and geese. But in recent weeks, the deadly disease has picked up the pace.
However, the Essex-based farmer did suggest that while there may be a shortage, prices are unlikely to rise.
He said: “I think it will just be a supply issue rather than the prices being hiked.”
Since October, there have been 136 confirmed cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 in Britain, with the large bulk of cases being reported in England. More than a third of poultry farms have had to roll out control measures in a bid to limit the spread of bird flu, regardless them being directly affected by the disease or not.
Mr Kelly said the outbreak has been “devastating” for farmers. He added: “The challenge for a lot of the smaller seasonal producers that produce Christmas poultry is they have their Christmas flock on their farm and when the turkeys are infected they all die within four days.
“To give you an example, we had one farmer with 9,500 (birds). The first infection was on Thursday evening, 20 mortality, and by Monday lunchtime they were all dead.”
The farmer added that he has lost a staggering £1.2million this year because, putting his future rearing poultry for Christmas in jeopardy.
He said: “Can we take the risk to grow Christmas poultry based on what we’ve seen this year? We couldn’t. And had I known what I know now we would not have grown the turkeys we did. Looking to next year, I don’t want to put the farm at risk.
“Without a vaccine in place or a compensation scheme that is fit for purpose, I don’t know whether we’d have the confidence to grow Christmas poultry next year.”
In previous years, the HPAI virus has mostly died out during the summer and early autumn months, but it has remained prominent all year round in 2022. According to James Mottershead, chairman of the National Farmers Union (NFU)’s poultry board, Britain produces more than 11 million turkeys every year, with just under two-thirds being consumed during the Christmas period.
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In October, the UK’s chief veterinary officer Christine Middlemiss said bird flu vaccines used in other countries were “not hugely effective” and would likely not help the current situation.
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: “We have taken decisive action to tackle this disease and have worked closely with farmers to put infection control measures in place to limit the risk of it spreading further.Outbreak numbers have levelled-off in recent weeks suggesting that the recent housing orders are starting to have an impact.
“Sadly approximately 1.4 million turkeys, some of which are free range, have been culled, but around 11 million turkeys are produced in the UK every year, meaning that there will still be a good supply of Christmas turkeys.
“These outbreaks are understandably very concerning for the impact they have on individual turkey farmers and we are working closely with them to provide the support they need.”
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