Chickens culled to test bird flu contingency plans

Ireland is now better prepared to deal with an outbreak of bird flu following the testing of a contingency plan on a farm in Co Limerick today.

Fifteen tonnes of liquid carbon dioxide in the form of dry ice was injected into a shed containing 12,000 hens on a farm in Kilmeady this afternoon.

A team of veterinary experts and animal welfare officials monitored the exercise.

Pat Meskell, a Veterinary Inspector for the Department of Agriculture in Limerick monitored the cull: “We had television monitors and infra-red monitors on the birds continually as the gas came in and we watched the chickens' reaction from the time the gas was introduced"

“I would think that most of them were dead within about ten minutes.”

The action had been criticised but Mr Meskell said: “It was totally humane, they showed hardly any distress. We thought the reaction would be that the hens would storm to one end of the shed, that was one of our fears. That did not happen.”