Bird Flu

The news caught up with me just before lunch yesterday.

Over the last few days, things have become easier down on the farm; the weather has given us a respite from the cold, outside water is now flowing and everything that looked so frozen and sad a week ago, has pulled through. Even the coriander in the polytunnel looks as if it might survive to photosynthesis another day.

So, I was in a good mood as I swung into the kitchen to grab a sandwich. Enter my better half; had I heard about the bird flu threat and the decision by DEFRA to impose an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone across England, Wales, and Scotland? No, I hadn’t but I was about to.

There have been outbreaks of what is classified as a ‘highly pathogenic strain’ of avian influenza (there are two strains and this is the nasty one) in several eastern European countries very recently and now the news was of one in France, just across that tiny stretch of water that separates us from all sorts of harm. The disease is spread by contact, bird to bird and through body fluids and faeces rather than airborne so very early yesterday morning the government decided to enforce an ‘immediate and compulsory housing of domestic chickens, hens, turkeys and ducks or their separation from wild birds’; rough quote from the DEFRA website. This applies to all poultry flocks, big and small, from large producers to people like me with a few birds. The order stands for a month until the 6^th January.

As I walked down to shut up my birds, I was trying to work out what I was going to do. My chickens and ducks are free range. They spend their lives outside. They live in small arks and have large runs surrounded by electric fencing which protects them from foxes but not viruses. How was I going to comply and protect them? The arks are too small to keep the birds in for a month. The runs are too big to cover in any way. By the time I reached the smallholding I had had a couple of flashes of inspiration. The chickens could go into the polytunnel and there was room for the ducks in our bird proof fruit cage where I had pulled up a bed of aging strawberry plants in the Autumn.

A plan. I would need to borrow a crate to put the birds in while we moved house for them, we would still need the electric fencing because I don’t trust our fox population, we would need to dismantle part of the fruit cage to move the duck ark inside it and we would need to construct some sort of roosting area inside the polytunnel where the chickens would feel safe at night and lay their eggs.

Somehow today we did it. I rescued some of the plants that were in pots from the polytunnel, cut parsley and coriander to dry and turned my back on the beds of leaf salad and greens and then we swung into action with a couple of pallets and some ply to create a nesting area for the chickens, caught them and introduced them to their new home. Then came the electric fencing around the outside and much swearing.

Once family one was settled in, we concentrated on the ducks and moved their ark into the safe zone I had chosen for them. More electric fencing and more swearing but we did it. There is no pond but they can move around through the raspberry canes and shovel for worms.

Once everything was done I peeped into the polytunnel to see how the chickens were faring in their new abode. The leaf salad, spinach and lettuce were gone and the greens were stripped and they looked remarkably happy with life.

Tonight, as I shut up the ducks and checked the chickens everything was quiet, all had settled down in their new homes; it was just my world that had turned upside down.