Chicken lockdown this year...

[Nudibranch]

I fully appreciate that having posted this, it'll probably happen tomorrow but...
I am amazed that we are nearly in December and I haven't yet heard anything. I check the situation online daily and I *think*, although the info doesn't have any comparison data, that this year cases are surprisingly low? I may be totally wrong on that one of course.

I've been looking in to a stock polytunnel for next winter as it seems to have become an annual event, getting longer every year. I know there's been a fair bit of debate about the impact (or lack of) of lockdowns, and I'm sure I recently read an article confirming that airborne farm to farm transmission wasn't possible. No sh*t Sherlock. I got so fed up of the nonsense rules that I wrote to my MP. Living on the border where birds 100m down the road had a month of extra freedom, and pheasant releases and shoots remain exempt, for example. Of course the Defra reply was so utterly pointless and irrelevant I didn't even get to the end of the letter.

Anyone want to correct me? I won't say I'm happy to be corrected as it'll mean losing a stable and loads of mucking out. But better than a 10k fine I suppose...

 

[twiggy2]

I think that the general thinking is that flockdown didn't really make much difference, we didn't have flockdown last winter in scotland and it wasn't any worse here than anywhere else.

 

[Keith_Beef]

Over here in France, the risk is described as "negligible" by government and according to official World Organisation for Animal Health reports France is clear of outbreaks.

I think it's possible that Europe and the British isles might get a winter without bird 'flu, for 2023-24.

Influenza aviaire : la situation en France

Retrouvez dans cet article la situation épidémiologique d'influenza aviaire en France

agriculture.gouv.fr

 

[tda]

My friend keeps mentioning it as she has a LOT of chickens and ducks, there have been some reported incidents locally to her but nothing major so far

 

[The Bouncing Bog Trotter]

Fingers crossed a different approach will be taken this winter as flockdown presents a huge welfare issue and so many of my friends are not restocking and intend to give up chickens in the long term.

I did find last year’s lockdown a bit of a travesty! We are very close to an outbreak area and have friends with chickens living in the ‘zone’. One friend with a registered flock was inspected but one friend wasn’t - she could see the officials walking round in their hazmat suits from her bedroom window but had no knock on the door to ask about her birds. We were told that there would be a team going round knocking on doors to inspect garden chickens and ducks but no-one we know got the knock.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

I didn’t replace my hens when I lost them this year because I couldn’t stand seeing them in their run everyday and not strutting around the orchard. It is large and I put lots of roosting logs, hay bales and straw on the floor for them to scratch and nest but it wasn’t the same as them having fresh worms and grass to root around in. We do have 7 ducks but they live in the garden and have a covered structure which can be moved every few days.

 

[Esmae]

I am praying that the flockdown era has gone. My hens are so much happier for getting out in the garden. They have a large covered run with their house inside it but it isn't the same as getting out and about. I wanted some more birds but delayed it until this winter is done and we actually see what the situation is.

 

[kathantoinette]

I work in the poultry industry. There are very few cases of AI compared with last year and the year before last, which is why there has been no requirement for a housing order (flockdown).
Let’s hope it stays this way.

 

[Widgeon]

Fingers crossed. Ours are visibly healthier and happier when they're allowed out into the orchard.