Cull of 10,000 chickens an ‘opportunity to test slaughter procedures’ in case bird flu arrives

NEARLY 10,000 chickens have been slaughtered as part of contingency plans to deal with any bird flu outbreak in the North, it emerged yesterday.

Veterinary experts used gas to destroy poultry at a farm in Moy, Co Tyrone.

Officials said there was no fear of the chickens being infected, but were no longer to be used for laying eggs.

Bert Houston, Chief Veterinary Officer for Northern Ireland, said: “There’s a low risk of this spreading into Northern Ireland or the UK as a whole, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be ready for it.

“We will need to be able to depopulate large numbers of birds humanely and with the minimum amount of human contact if this comes in.

“We identified an opportunity for us to trial and test our abilities to do that on the ground in a situation where it had to be done in any event.”

Health chiefs have warned Britain would have just weeks to prepare for a pandemic if a mutated avian virus spreads from Asia.

All Chinese and Russian chicken products have been banned from ports in Northern Ireland.

In a two-day operation Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) staff used CO2 gas on 9,400 caged chickens.

Officials from Britain and the Republic studied the methods, which have been employed in Canada.

A smaller broiler flock kept in a house were destroyed in an earlier cull.

A DARD spokesman insisted the latest batch would have been killed anyway under a routine management process.

“This was a laying poultry flock at the end of its productive life,” he said.

“DARD took this opportunity to test its slaughter procedures as part of its contingency planning for epizootic disease.

“The birds have not been culled as part of any suspicion of Avian Flu.”

Meanwhile, government officials on both sides of the Irish border met yesterday to discuss attempts to counter the bird flu threat.

Later a DARD statement said: “Both Departments agree with the current view that the risk of high pathogenic avian influenza being imported onto the island is probably ‘low or remote’.

“Nonetheless, the two Departments are committed to implementing the EU Commission decision to step up surveillance and have been taking steps to increase surveillance levels.