Chicken farmer hits out at alert response

The owner of the only commercial poultry farm within the bird-flu surveillance zone in Fife today criticised the official response to the scare.

Donald Peddie operates Kilduncan Poultry Farm at Kingsbarns, just under six miles from Cellardyke, where a dead swan was found to have been carrying the pathogenic H5 virus.

An official protection zone has been thrown up 1.8 miles around the discovery site in the village’s harbour restricting movements of all eggs inside, as well as a surveillance area up to six miles away.

Mr Peddie said he first heard about the bird-flu discovery while watching television last night.

He has a flock of 22,000 chickens in barns and battery sheds producing around 20,000 eggs a week and said he was “obviously worried” about a suspected outbreak.

Mr Peddie added: “The Veterinary Office phoned me at 8am this morning. They were checking that their restrictions were up to date.

“I think there are questions about how the information came out. I would have expected to be contacted a bit earlier.

“This is obviously a bit worrying. I was not expecting any discovery to be this close.”

As soon as he was alerted by officials, Mr Peddie said he put into place antiseptic cleansing devices for his four-strong staff at the entrance to each chicken barn.

Workers will now clean themselves each time they enter or leave a barn.

Mr Peddie, whose family have farmed in Fife for 40 years, said his birds were checked at least once a day and he had so far found no dead chickens.

“I am more worried about if customers start to become frightened of buying eggs,” he added.

“The unanimous verdict of all the experts is that eggs are completely safe as long as you take the usual measures.”

There were no specific movement restrictions outside the three-kilometre restriction zone, Mr Peddie said.

He added that he was not planning to move any live poultry for at least two weeks.