Friday 9th December 2016
DEFRA and Avian flu
On the 6th of this month, DEFRA announced a 30-day Prevention Zone that stated: 'Poultry keepers across Great Britain must now keep chickens, hens, ducks and turkeys housed indoors where practicable, or keep them separate from wild birds. For farmed geese, game birds and other captive birds where housing is less practicable, keepers must take steps to keep them separate from wild birds.' The reason: 'to protect poultry from a highly pathogenic strain of avian flu [that is currently] present in Europe'.
For most 'backyard' poultry keepers and for a fair few commercial owners, this has come as a massive shock and for the last three days, social media has been full of panic, outrage, worry and general scaremongering. There have also been some voices of reason and some healthy advice!!
Here on the Relaxed smallholding, it is fair to say that the DERFA edict has caused a couple of sleepiness nights as the only way for us to comply, has been to shut all our birds (all 52 of them) in their nighttime stall. When we first did this we had to keep the lights on all day as the stall has no windows at all (perfect for nighttime) plus the ventilation required for 24/7 was also not great, having Yorkshire boarding (slatted vertical boarding) only above perch height and solid blocks below (again, fab for nighttime but not for the daytime when birds are moving around a lot more).
The whole stall is 7m by 4m and around 4/5m high: Government regulations state that for birds in non-cage systems, one chicken needs one square foot inside a house (or approximately nine birds to a square metre). That sounds hideous. We have 28 square metres and as such could have up to 250 birds in this space…. Most of our poultry are chickens (we have 40 in total), the remaining 12 birds being made up of 4 ducks and 8 turkeys. Turkeys need more space than chickens and ducks but nonetheless, based on these rules, we are giving our birds almost FIVE times the recommended space and yet to us, it seems an alarmingly small space to have over 50 birds. Having said that, these rules are really aimed at large producers and there is a massive difference between 50 birds sharing five and a half square meters (i.e. nine birds to a square metre) and 500 birds sharing 55 square metres (although we still shudder at the thought).
Back to our windowless stall: our current solution has been to put netting in the top half of two of the three stable doors which means during the day we can open the top half of the doors and so allow in both light and fresh air. This has made a huge difference.
We always use straw as our bedding and adding straw has been one of the top recommendations for the 30-day restriction as poultry love to rake through straw to find odd bits of wheat or similar, as well as any minibeasts that may be lurking.
We would prefer to give the birds a run as well so that they get a lot more fresh air and 'earth' beneath their feet but, to erect a run big enough would be quite a project just now (and cost a fair bit too) plus said run would have to ensure no wild birds (nor their droppings), could gain access.
We are just hoping like mad that at the end of the 30 days (6th Jan), no one decides to suggest an extension. It is all tied up with migrating birds so hopefully by then, most will be where they need to be and NONE wil have bought the flu with them...
Here on the Relaxed smallholding, it is fair to say that the DERFA edict has caused a couple of sleepiness nights as the only way for us to comply, has been to shut all our birds (all 52 of them) in their nighttime stall. When we first did this we had to keep the lights on all day as the stall has no windows at all (perfect for nighttime) plus the ventilation required for 24/7 was also not great, having Yorkshire boarding (slatted vertical boarding) only above perch height and solid blocks below (again, fab for nighttime but not for the daytime when birds are moving around a lot more).
The whole stall is 7m by 4m and around 4/5m high: Government regulations state that for birds in non-cage systems, one chicken needs one square foot inside a house (or approximately nine birds to a square metre). That sounds hideous. We have 28 square metres and as such could have up to 250 birds in this space…. Most of our poultry are chickens (we have 40 in total), the remaining 12 birds being made up of 4 ducks and 8 turkeys. Turkeys need more space than chickens and ducks but nonetheless, based on these rules, we are giving our birds almost FIVE times the recommended space and yet to us, it seems an alarmingly small space to have over 50 birds. Having said that, these rules are really aimed at large producers and there is a massive difference between 50 birds sharing five and a half square meters (i.e. nine birds to a square metre) and 500 birds sharing 55 square metres (although we still shudder at the thought).
Back to our windowless stall: our current solution has been to put netting in the top half of two of the three stable doors which means during the day we can open the top half of the doors and so allow in both light and fresh air. This has made a huge difference.
We always use straw as our bedding and adding straw has been one of the top recommendations for the 30-day restriction as poultry love to rake through straw to find odd bits of wheat or similar, as well as any minibeasts that may be lurking.
We would prefer to give the birds a run as well so that they get a lot more fresh air and 'earth' beneath their feet but, to erect a run big enough would be quite a project just now (and cost a fair bit too) plus said run would have to ensure no wild birds (nor their droppings), could gain access.
We are just hoping like mad that at the end of the 30 days (6th Jan), no one decides to suggest an extension. It is all tied up with migrating birds so hopefully by then, most will be where they need to be and NONE wil have bought the flu with them...