Officials dealing with bird flu outbreaks have been accused of adopting a heartless “one size fits all” approach towards people who keep a few poultry as pets.
A three-kilometre captive bird controlled zone was declared around premises at Brackenber, near Appleby, on Thursday, February 9, after an outbreak of avian influenza was confirmed. All the birds at Brackenber have since been culled.
The alarm had been raised the previous day by Sally Flatman, the owner of the handful of chickens and ducks concerned — all kept under cover — but she says she now regrets having done so.
According to Sally, a vet from the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) took samples from some of her chickens and ducks kept in a stable, but not from other call ducks in a conservatory, which were pets belonging to her son.
The next evening she received a phone call from an APHA vet who told Sally her birds had tested positive and would have to be culled.
“I then received a phone call from the vet who had visited my premises and he also said my birds would have to be culled. This vet had no idea who the first vet was. Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?”
APHA returned the next day and killed the one remaining hen and 16 ducks in the stable, but Sally initially refused them entry to her house to kill the four pet call ducks.
Sally said: “They had been in the conservatory before any of my outside birds had shown any signs of illness. I explained this to the APHA but no-one bothered to try and understand this.”
While Sally was at work, parts of her premises, including stables, were sprayed with disinfectant she was later told was dangerous to human health.
She said: “I pointed out that my miniature horse’s medication was in the tack room off the stables, so I needed access. I was told to put on a COVID mask and spend as little time as possible in there.
“It’s yet another example of why this is not suitable for a pet owner. My horse’s food bowls were in the stables. Were these sprayed with disinfectant? No-one could tell me.”
Bedding in the stable which had been sprayed with disinfectant was left in place and Sally was later told to dispose of it in a pit, as if she was a farmer who could use such methods.
She said that if the ducks in her conservatory had tested positive she would have been happy for them to be culled, but did not understand why this happened without any samples being taken.
“Those birds were our much loved pets, they had individual veterinary attention when they needed it, they were in my house, one of them had hatched in an incubator in my dining room and swam in my bath.”
She has also been told that if she wants to ride her horse off her premises then she will need a licence — a process she was told “might take a while”.
She said: “As for cleaning out the stables, if I want more poultry I have to wait a year, or wait 48 days and clean and disinfect and then be inspected. I can pretty much guarantee that my non-purpose built buildings wouldn’t pass an inspection.”
She added: “I have been ignored, belittled, talked over on phone calls, made to miss important family events and treated with no empathy by people who are used to dealing with commercial producers of poultry and eggs. I totally regret my decision to be honest and report my dying hens.
“I’m not against trying to fight bird flu — we need to keep our food producing birds healthy for the food security of the UK, but they can be kept in bio-secure poultry units.
“Pet owners, although they love their pets, cannot afford or do not have the space to do so.”
