Sadly, I think its looking quite bad and I wouldn't be surprised if a nationwide housing order comes out within the next couple of weeks maybe even sooner. Dr Nigel Gibbens, Chief Veterinary Officer who has a big influence on these decisions is due to retire at the end of next month so I'm guessing he'll err on the side of caution as will the NFU.
There have been two more outbreaks in wild birds since the one in Dorset. One in Warwickshire and the other yesterday near Cambridge.
The first outbreak was in 15 Mute Swans but a Common Pochard and a Canada Goose also died.
The second outbreak in Warwickshire involved, a Herring Gull, 6 Great black-backed Gulls, a Great Crested Grebe and 5 Tufted Ducks. All European H5N6.
The 3rd outbreak is at Amwell Nature Reserve, Hertfordshire, which is now closed but there's no information available yet about what species / virus were involved. I expect that will come out in the next couple of days.
If we're lucky then maybe that'll be the end of it but in my heart I think its just getting going. Hope I'm wrong.
The thing that's really worrying me is that spring migration is just around the corner and its possible we might see the return of H5N8 as well. I'm no expert but it seems a little unusual that there are active outbreaks in places where the temperatures ranges are 10-30 C like South Africa and Saudi Arabia to mention a couple.
I know it really sucks to keep birds in and you can't help feeling sorry for them being cooped up, but you should see what happens in countries where controls aren't so tight. There are plenty of countries in Africa where they've had to import breeding eggs as they didn't have any left. In Iran they had had to stamp out 17 million birds over the past 10 months and South Africa killed millions in order to get it under control...