The Government have this evening announced the legal requirement to house all captive birds from 00:01 on 29th November. This is in addition to a range of biosecurity requirements already in place. Given the increasing frequency of recorded cases each day of Avian 'Flu (a notifiable disease) this has come as no surprise. The nearest case to where we are, so far, is Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk, about 50 miles away.
In anticipation of today's announcement I have been spending the last few days preparing. The main task has been to put in place a temporary structure for the ducks. A couple of weeks ago I bought a roll of scaffolding mesh to provide a 'roof' over their run area. This is complete and the only question is whether it can stand a heavy fall of snow should we have one.
It meets the requirement to contain the birds but also to prevent any wild birds from having any contact with them. Migratory birds and gulls are the chief concern, and are the main source of transmission, but any bird is susceptible.
The chickens and turkeys each have their separate spaces and arrangements for their confinement were already in place.
This is interesting. Does "housed" mean literally shut up in a barn or hen house, or can hens still be outside, within an enclosed run?
ReplyDeleteHi, you are allowed to confine poultry within a fully netted run including roof. The mesh has to be 25mm maximum. Feeders and drinkers have to be covered so wild bird droppings don’t contaminate them. If you have a few chickens this should be easy to set up but with larger numbers it is more difficult.large commercial producers have big barns.
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