[richyrich7]

Nightmare - just when we thought the panic had stopped.  Hopefully it won't get outside of the BM place. 160,000 birds - what  a terrible place that must be.

I hope they have the decency to kill them humainly, not just turn of the ventillation as was recommended last time   :!:

Unfortunately for the turkeys humainly won't be as high a priority as cost, but thats life I suppose for intensive farmed animals of any sort  

I've just came back from asda and there's an awful lot of chicken left on the shelves, hope this doesn't start another panic about back yard poultry keeping.

[02rlgudgin]

how likely is it to spread to other parts of the country and should we be worried

[denbo73]

Good luck muntey, and the rest of the chook farmers :shock:

[shaun]

how likely is it to spread to other parts of the country and should we be worried

the papers will go to town on this one and blow it out of proportion ,I wouldnt panic myself but if i lived in that area and kept birds then thats a different story,i'm sure karl will keep us informed as its on his doorstep.

[ziggywigs]

Saw this on MSN.....how worrying.

http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=2785654

[muntjac]

i know im not worrying unduly about my birds until the * hits the fan as they say but i only got back froma a meeting with the dam boss a while back n its near midnight now . we should be trapping pheasants this week for the next month and now that been cancelled .ok so what you say .well that my job down the pan as i catch them up and get them laying eggs n breeding chicks for next season n now i may be out of a job if the boss decides not to keep me on and buy hundreds more poults in  later in the year  the 2 underkeepers can sort that if not do all my job anyways , and top that it is my biggest money earner anyways ,1/3rd my income comes from what i rear for shooting etc . my mate not a stone throw had 1800 game birds and his whole business depends on them, and the scaremonerginga sshole press giving out the wrong information dont help the protection zones have changed on every frikin channels report including the one posted  from msn .... also i got 2 fone calls earlier asking if i was in the "" zones 22 and asking to cancel until things settle down  and im not the only one all my local freinds is calling n saying they have eggs spare i i need any cos of cancelled orders

[shaun]

realy bad news mate and the hardest thing is you cant do jack s**t about it,think back a few years to foot n mouth and all those 1000s of pefectly healthy animals that were destroyed truly heart breaking,but like you say the press love scaring the public and that stinks.

[John]

If a domestic owner of a few birds had got this I doubt they'd have reacted as dramatically. If you think about it, it is one location and although there are hundreds of thousands of bird affected it's still one location plus they are indoors so less likely to spread, I think.

The real question is how it got in - if it's in the wild birds in the UK then there will be real reason for worry by poultry keepers. Not so much about the flu as about the hysterical media frenzy.

The real danger is to workers in the industry and that isn't that great with some minor precautions. We're not dealing with ebola here.

There is always the problem that no scientist can ever say something is 100% safe, so in answer to the question 'are eggs 100% safe?' they may not  answer yes.. great for yet another scare mongering headline.

I hope this calms down soon for you Karl and all the others in your area.

[GrannieAnnie]

Oh Karl, we really feel for you and the others affected.  Like you say, the media will blow it up out of all proportion.  People are so stupid and ignorant.  Fancy stopping buying chickens out of a shop when the chickens were killed months ago and frozen, or even fresh birds.  They could have come from anywhere!!!

It makes me so mad.  Brian is saying there's now no movement of poultry in Suffolk or Norfolk and we are next country over.  Not that we are moving any of our birds anyway, but the next thing is DEFRA will be telling us al to keep our chooks indoors.

My Brian says they are going to gas the birds, so it will be quick.  Poor things, and most of them are perfectly healthy too!!!  Others countries keep this sort of thing quiet, so people think buying birds from other countries is okay, but in fact they have more probs than we do, but of course, we're the idiots that have to tell the whole world what's going on in our country, like we did with the F&M.

[ziggywigs]

The Health Authority/DEFRA should be doing more to put things in perspective and keeping the media from panicking everyone, particularly as the media have been also spouting on about a pandemic 'flu outbreak which is absolutely nothing to do with Avian 'flu.  To the media they don't give a damn that this affects people's livliehoods....so much for responsible reporting.

I feel for you Karl as we had an outbreak up here last year of Avian 'flu in dead swans and it went daft thankfully it was short lived being in Scotland.

[psipower]

Bird flu? I'm sorry I can't fit it into my panic schedule until at least June. I'm fully booked up worrying about binge drinking, terrorists, passive smoking and Jade Goody.

Steve Wilds, Leeds, United Kingdom

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Oh no, NOT again, please!!!!
Another 24 to 48 hours of total media hype & saturation on a complete non-story (APART FOR THE UNFORTUNATE BIRDS).
It wont transfer to humans. It wont kill anyone in GB. It wont spread across the nation.
BBC, ITV, Newspapers PLEASE give-up on this total, scare-mongering, nonsensical drivel.
The only pandemic I can see is the media coverage.

tommi konttinen, United Kingdom

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Above are the top two supported opinions on the bbc website. It seems the public are not likely to be stampeded or in mindless panic! Well, not the average bbc website users anyway .

(Sorry that doesn't help those directly caught up)

[John]

That's good news - perhaps people will just think 'been there, done that, got the T shirt' rather than running around screaming.

I heard on the radio someone saying there was lttle chance of interaction with wild birds for the BM turkeys and that it was suspected that it could have come in on some foodstuff. I suppose there is little point speculating until things become clearer.

[Des C]

Sorry to hear that you are within the zone, Karl. Hopefully this will be cleared up quickly and you can get back on track for Spring

Des C

[Mrs.Veg]

Hope everything works out ok for you folks.  The question I just posted about whether or not to start with bantams seems a bit insensitive now - sorry  :cry:

[muntjac]

you get started mrs veg ,, insensitive phoooey we are blooming adults on here .. well all except shorty shaun ,im about as sensitive as a blooming tornado me ,,,have no fear im not out the game or ever will be lolo