Poultry farmers have been urged to nail down the basics of biosecurity to prevent bird flu entering their flocks.

Speaking on an Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) webinar on Tuesday evening, St David’s Poultry team specialist poultry vet Aonghus Lane advised farmers to “do the basics and do it as well as you possibly can”.

“Try and assess what the risks are to your site. Take a walk around the outside of your shed. See if there are any gutters, any shoots that need to be unblocked.

“Also, assess and see are there areas where rodents and vermin could be hanging out. Have you had damage from the recent storms?"

Risks

“It’s not just a case of saying ‘We’ll have to grin and bear it’. If there is something that can be done, try and reduce those risks,” he added.

Almost 200 people logged on to the webinar, to which Lane outlined in detail the many biosecurity measures that can be undertaken to prevent disease spread, including highly pathogenic avian influenza, on poultry farms.

Responding to questions, officials from the Department of Agriculture confirmed that if a backyard poultry flock (classed as less than 50 birds) went down with avian influenza, a control zone would not be put in place.

Tyrone

This comes following three cases of bird flu in a fortnight on Co Tyrone poultry farms within close proximity of each other.

Some 32,000 birds have been culled following the latest suspected case this week in Cookstown, while 16,000 were depopulated in Pomeroy at the weekend and 65,000 in Dungannon a week previous, both in commercial laying flocks.