AGeese
Crowing
I love how the truth is typically reported after the fact. Fear sells, just exchange the number culled with actual fatalities due to the virus or comorbidity/infection and you have a recipe for fear.Please read this; it's from 2022 when the disease was still an issue.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...lling-of-140m-farmed-birds-since-last-october
There are a lot of people involved at the top who think culling is not a good way to deal with such diseases. Those who are worried should try to find some figures for exactly how many backyard birds have been culled by officials in this latest H5N1 outbreak and what sort of percentage of all keepers they represent. Is this a real threat or a vanishingly unlikely one?
It is, btw, essentially over now. The whole UK has just moved to low risk status. Wild and domestic birds are acquiring immunity to it, as normal.
A virus needs a living host to spread, so generally speaking it's those with weak or compromised immune systems at risk. The industry isn't selecting for strong immunity by culling, they're ensuring weak chickens with short life spans that can mature quick, be high producers, and die before they burn out.
There is no incentive for large commercial operations to test every bird, and isolate etc. It's the scorched earth policy instead totally unsustainable, and disturbing.
Heritage homestead birds for life!