NETHERLANDS ORDERS POULTRY INDOORS AS BIRD FLU NEARS

Dutch Agriculture Minister Cees Veerman has called on owners of chickens and ducks to take measures as soon as possible to ensure their poultry do not come into contact with wild birds. A regulation making it compulsory to keep all poultry indoors comes into effect on Monday 20 February.

The Dutch public are increasingly fearful of an outbreak of avian influenza, following the discovery earlier this week of the deadly H5N1 variant of the virus in dead swans on the German island of Rugen in the Baltic Sea.

The new measures to keep poultry inside is a disaster for organic chickens. This chickens should walk outside all their life, but until now it was only possible for 7 weeks. For regular poultry farmers the new measures are no problem. Their animals are inside anyway and even the free range chickens can stay inside for a while before the information on the label needs to be changed. But the organic chickens that stay inside for too long, start being bored and start to fight with each other. Since they all have an intact beak. One of the farmers: ‘when they have seen blood, they are unstoppable. They become real cannibals.’

According to the organic poultry farmer the Dutch are much better prepared than in 2003. ‘At the time the virus took us by surprise. Now there are a lot of controls and there is an obligation to report dead birds. Vaccination really is the best solution. The European Commission in Brussels gave its okay for that in December 2005, but other links in the Dutch poultry chains are against vaccination. They are afraid that it will effect their sales.’

Initially, the Dutch minister Veerman intended to confine poultry to hen-coops only in areas where a large amount of wild birds congregate. He extended the measure to cover the entire country after bird flu was detected in Germany. Veerman also banned poultry markets and exhibitions or shows for poultry or homing pigeons from Monday. Indoors markets and exhibitions for other exotic birds will still be permitted.

Concern was increased by the discovery of eight dead swans on the German island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea. At least two of the swans were infected with the H5N1 strain of bird flu that can be deadly for humans.

World leading and advisor of the European commission, Dutch Virologist Osterhaus, said on Wednesday he would not hazard a guess as to whether the Netherlands would quickly be added to the list of European countries where the H5N1 virus has been detected. "It is not impossible that it will be here too within a few days. We must be prepared should it come," he said. Extensive scientific research is done on migrating birds, since the season of migration will start soon.

The Dutch were struck by the deadly H5N1 virus in 2003 and managed in afew weeks to get the disease out of the system, by killing millions of chickens. The presence of the aggressive bird flu virus has been a disaster for Dutch poultry farmers. One of the farmers: financially most of us just managed to survive in 2003, but when the bird flu arrives here again many farmers will go bankrupt. more features

February 20, 2006