Posted By Dave Wilson So Organic farming allowing birds to go out side and rummage around is not for you. Dont know how you can control this unless all poultry is kept inside 24/7.

Posted By Lilian McCartney This 'farm' was actually within the quarantine area limit imposed to prevent spread. The lady was spoekn to (caught on camera) by the auhtorities and given time to 'catch all the chickens'. It's hard to say whether she is unable to understand, hadn't been aware of or delibarately ignoring the quarantine given it was only on camera for a short while. Hopefully her chooks will be under cover now. It has to be remembered though that some large free to roam places won't automatically have enough undercover sheds for all their birds and this will take time to get. It makes it doubly important for breeders to be vigilant. Also, those who go to watch or sight-see should also be aware of their actions and possible of transmitting infections (one theory being examined is that somene oculd have walked on bird roppings and then wne tont othe farm and somene else taken it into the shed on their feet. It'll be interesting to see if they ever find the route in.

Posted By Dave Wilson Nice one Jim!

Posted By Dean Stevens Jim I hear what your saying but................... are you not being re-active here instead of pro-active? I appreciate the spread of disease / infections in hospitols is rife but to be honest i wasn't asking the question "where should our priorities lie?". Avian flu has the POTENTIAL to kill hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of humans in the long run if it is not controlled properly. As i forgot to mention in my original post, this "farm" in question was within the Bernard Matthews quarentine zone hence my suprise at her negligence / lack of knowledge. I wasn't really looking to get involved in any kind of argument / fallout, was just asking the question, was this womens attitude down to sheer negligence or lack of knowledge on current issues???

Posted By Alan Haynes Vaccination won't necessarily work for factory farmed poultry that is being raised for eating [as opposed to for egg production]. The vaccine won't be effective for long enough, owing to the age at which they vaccinate and the following period that it takes to become effective in the bird. By the time the vaccine is effective, the bird is about ready to be killed.

Posted By John Murgatroyd "Contrast that to the 1000s that are dying needlessly in UK hospitals from hospital acquired infections, due to poor management" From infections they wouldn't even have become ill from 10 years ago, don't you mean ? Wouldn't have become ill from, because the infection/s were controllable with antibiotics. I don't mind saying this: Your chances of NOT contracting an infection in a multi-bed ward which has a large amount of staff and visitors wandering about in is not good. If you are already ill, they become smaller. Poor management, yes. But not the hospital management, the management of health resource. The needless use of antibiotics to fatten cattle...and poultry....for profit. Oh, and this is not me speaking, this is a consultant in respiratory disease. 10 years ago none of his patients would have become ill....there were very few antibiotic resistant bacteria. Now there are few that don't exhibit reistance to drugs. In the case of staphlococcus, since it is commonly found on peoples skin, it is obviously going to be hard to keep away from people.

Posted By AHS IMHO £5 a bird is a small price to pay when one considers the consequences ie human pandemic. Culling and disposal will not work out much cheaper. They cant sell culled birds for food so thats £2 lost, disposal and incineration could be another £1. Leaving a real cost of £2 per vaccination a very small outlay.

Posted By Tabs Dean wrote: "I wasn't really looking to get involved in any kind of argument / fallout, was just asking the question, was this woman's attitude down to sheer negligence or lack of knowledge on current issues???" It is possibly both - but listening to the news it was clear that whilst the media is kept fully up to date, the local residents were not. Not everyone has a TV - let alone watch it. Some of us catch the news only if we forget to change the channel. If DEFRA want the chickens to be brought indoors, they really should be going around telling people - I know that the vast majority within the zone were sent a text message, but that was done against the "Poultry Register" and it would seem that it is not comprehensive. I have been watching this subject extremely closely and involved in a lot of planning - but I have to say that the majority of the government's preparations have been passive - i.e. shared with everyone who bothers to try to find out about it. Have the small holdings been engaged yet? I would like to hear from anyone that knows the definitive answer to that, as it is the small holdings that are likely to provide the stepping stones that the virus needs to become widespread. I am scared by the comments about the work gangs going from farm to farm! Actually better than wildfowl in terms of spreading this virus.

Posted By AHS Firstly the current science says that if vaccinate or destroy just domestic poultry the Flu risk to humans becomes negligible. Secondly as the quarantine method failed abysmally with foot and mouth would you rather kill and burn/dispose of millions of birds or simply vaccinate them for a similar price. Thirdly the cost of a human pandemic will be considerably more than a couple of quid for each domestic bird.

Posted By AHS Vaccinations broadly speaking are 99 percent effective thats how we eradicated diseases like Smallpox and TB. Although due to a cut back in supplying vaccines of the latter(TB)is now back and will cost society more in the long run. Politicians are taking a big risk with 60 million people if Avian Flu mutates.

Posted By Peter Leese Just to provide an indication of running a business like this, ask yourself, how much is a ready roasted chicken at one of the larger supermarkets, and then immediately reduce the price by at least 50% to cover their margins. After that take away poultry accomodation, fuel, food, employees wages, repairs, finance costs, slaughter, packaging, transport, middleman and a host of other costs. Where's the teapot mother?

Posted By J Knight Peter, Quite true, last night I bought four Chicken breasts to make Moroccan Lemon Chicken for our guests tonight. Because I'm an old softy and a recently revised vegetarian, I bought happy chicken meat, specifically two from Free Range, and two from Organic Chickens. The price differential over 'ordinary' pile-em-high sell-em-cheap Chicken was quite staggering, something in the region of 200% (free-range) to 250% (organic). Now, some of that will be because supermarkets know they can rip off sentimental sops like me, but some of it will be a reflection of the much higher costs of production involved in rearing birds in anything other than the most brutal conditions allowed by law; just the conditions which encourage wildfire spread of disease, John

Posted By J Knight Dunno about Tamiflu to Chickens, though it wouldn't surprise me, but I read on another forum that the H5N1 strain in Egypt is Tamiflu resistant already, so don't worry about people feeding it to chickens..... John