Backyard chicken owners are being urged to implement strong biosecurity measures to protect their flocks from Australia’s largest ever outbreak of bird flu. Five farms in southwest Victoria are under quarantine and more than eight hundred thousand hens have so far been culled.
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00:00AI is carried by rats and mice and also by pigeons and water birds, so we've 100% of
00:09the time we've got implementation of risk mitigation in place to avoid these sort of
00:15situations.
00:16What sort of things do you do then?
00:17Well, we've got our waters constantly chlorinated, we've fenced off any areas where we've got
00:24trees around the farm so that the birds can't get up under the trees and into any manure
00:28that may come out of roosting birds.
00:31We don't have any standing water on the place, we get rid of any pigeons or pigeons trying
00:35to nest around the farm and keep the general public out of the place even though they love
00:40to come and visit and see our farm, they do give us a problem.
00:44Yeah, I bet.
00:45Are you worried?
00:47Not particularly.
00:50The farms that have been affected are very, very high density, like 10, 12, 14 birds per
00:55square metre, which is 100, 140,000 birds a hectare sort of thing, compared to our 200
01:03birds a hectare, so we don't get half the problems that the big shed operators get.
01:09What sort of contact advice have you had from the likes of, say, Agriculture Victoria?
01:16Absolutely nothing, except the fact that there's an outbreak in the Meredith Lethbridge corridor.
01:23No contact at all to give you any advice?
01:26No contact at all.
01:27They haven't advised us whether the infections entered the properties from migratory birds
01:33or water birds or pigeons or rats, we've got no idea where it started from, so we don't
01:39know what sort of things we need to do to take extra precautions.
01:42Yeah, what would you like to hear from them?
01:45We'd like to hear the source, so if we know the source is rodents, well we can put extra
01:49bait stations out around in our paddocks and that sort of a thing, and have a bit more
01:54of a look at night if there's any rodent activity out in the paddocks.
02:00So anything would be good, it's the largest outbreak of AI in the country's history, so
02:05you'd think that the growers would actually be hearing a lot more first-hand from Agriculture
02:09Victoria.
02:10You're clearly a pro at this, Boyd, but as you'll know, there are lots of backyard chicken
02:16keepers as well that just have five or six in their backyard.
02:20What would be your advice for them?
02:23If you're in the area that's affected, if you're within 10 or 15 k's of the notified
02:27area, I'd be keeping the birds locked up, in that case, if you're going to have them
02:32locked up, you're going to need to have some extra carbon on the floor, either some sawdust
02:35or some rice hulls, that sort of thing to soak up the manure.
02:39Get extra baits out for clearing up any rodent issues, if you're not sure which baits to
02:44get, just go down to your local stock feeds and they'll certainly advise you most of the
02:47rat baits out there are bird resistant, you don't have any risk of killing off your birds
02:52if you're baiting for rats and mice.
02:55Clear out anything that's attractive to water birds and definitely clear out any nesting
02:58pigeons.
02:59Yeah, and is this something that you think that the authorities should be telling small
03:06holder chicken farmers?
03:09Absolutely, small holder chicken farmers or back yarders, it'd be good if they could give
03:14us a clear indication of which direction that the infections have come from.
03:19And Boyd, I know this isn't the same strain as bird flu has been seen in other parts of
03:24the world and that has been much more serious.
03:26The measures that were put into place, for example, in the UK were very stringent, they
03:31were very strict rules.
03:32Have you followed what's gone on there?
03:35No, I haven't.
03:36There's dozens and dozens of different strains.
03:38I see there's some very big outbreaks in America, they're probably more of a concern because
03:43those ones over there actually can infect humans as well.
03:50So that's more of a problem, but the high density farming is the real problem.
03:55Here we're not seeing any problems in the pasture based businesses or the low density
04:00end of the market.