'Farmer tells allotment owners to remove their chicken or he will cut off their water supply'. This was a heading in the Daily Telegraph the other week which attracted my attention. I did write to the Editor with a letter and asked that if he didn't print it to pass on the details to the allotment owners. I also suggested that they take a cameraman to the farmer's 70,000 poultry unit.
There has never been a recorded case of High Pathogenic Avian Influenza in a commercial poultry laying unit in the UK. All such outbreaks have been on turkey farms. The outbreak in Norfolk in 1979 on a turkey farm resulted in several Ministry poultry vets being despatched to the premises for further research. It was of course called Fowl Plague in those days so did not attract any media interest. The Ministry vets spent a considerable time on the premises attempting, amongst other things to infect other poultry. They were unable to achieve any sort of cross infection. Needless to say, none of them wore any protective face masks and none suffered so much as a single sneeze. The problem now is that with the passing of MAFF, taken over by Defra, they seem to have little if any idea that this problem has been thoroughly researched by MAFF, but I suspect that none of them know that Fowl Plague and Avian Influenza one and the same thing. These days we seem to be ruled by the Media and large vaccine companies who lobby Government officials, the latter not really understanding the problem or lack of it. I see also that Professor Oxford has been at it again on the TV claiming that we all need a vaccine to prevent us from a possible Pandemic of 'Avian Influenza', which does not exist, yet he and the vaccine companies are unable to provide as yet, a vaccine for Human Flu. There is a new flu vaccine promised to cover all flu types in the future, when this happens I for one will ignore it as I do now, by taking such an 'all-in-one' we may possibly lose our normal immunity to all colds and maybe other diseases. Remember that by cutting out TB, a disease which kept cancer at bay, this dreaded disease was able to develop unhindered. That is not to say one is better than the other.
Growing Turkeys without Medication? Several of the newer poultry feed manufacturers and therefore retailers, do not manufacture or handle medicated supplies of turkey feed. This can be a problem for some who like to rear a few turkey poults for Christmas, alongside or near to their other chicken. Keeping chicken and rearing turkeys can be a problem because chicken carry Blackhead disease and also, but very rarely, chicken can be infected by adult turkeys when running on the same land.
