Chicken owners urged implement biosecurity measures

The AI is carried by rats and mice and also by pigeons and water birds. So we've 100% of the time we've got implementation of risk mitigation in place to avoid these sort of situations. What sort of things do you do then? Well, we've got a waters current constantly chlorinated. We've fenced off any areas where we've got trees around the farm so that the birds can't get up under the trees and into any manure that might come out of roosting birds. We don't have any standing water on the place. We get rid of any pigeons or pigeons trying to nest around around the farm and keep the general public out of the place, even though they'd love to come and visit and see our farm. They do give us a problem. Yeah, I bet. Are you worried? Not particularly. Where the, the the farms that have been affected are very, very high density. Like they're 10-12, fourteen birds per square motor, which is 100 to 140,000 birds a hectare sort of thing compared to our 200 birds a hectare. So we don't get half the problems of the big shit operators get. What sort of contact advice have you had from the likes of, say, Agriculture Victoria? Absolutely nothing except the fact that there's an outbreak in in the Meredith Lethbridge corridor. No contact at all to give you any advice? No contact at all. They haven't advised us whether the infections into the properties from migratory birds or water birds or pigeons or rats. We've got no idea where it's started from. So that we can't, we don't know what sort of things we need to do to take extra proportions. Yeah. What would you like to hear from them? We'd like to hear the source. So if we know the source is rodents, where we can put extra bait stations out around in our paddocks and that sort of a thing and, and have a bit more of a look at night if there's any rodent activity out in the paddocks. So any, anything would be good. That's, that's a, that's the largest outbreak of AI in the country's history. So you'd think that the growers would actually be hearing a lot more first hand from agriculture. Vic, you, you're clearly a pro at this Boyd, but as you'll know, there are lots of backyard chicken keepers as well that just have five or six in their backyard. What would be your advice for them if you're in the area that's affected? If you're within 10 or 15 KS at the notified area, I'd be keeping the birds locked up in that. If you're going to have them locked up, you're going to need to have some extra carbon on the floor, either some sawdust or some rice holes, that sort of thing to soak up them in your get extra bites out for for clearing up any rodent issues. If you're not sure which bites to get, just go down to your local stock feeds and they'll certainly advise you. Most of the rat bites out there are bird resistant like though you don't have any risk of killing off your birds if you're biting for for rats and mice, clear out anything that's attractive to water birds and definitely clear out any nesting pigeons. Yeah. And, and, and is this something that you think that the the authorities should be telling smallholder chicken farmers, absolutely smallholder chicken farmers, all backyarders be good if they could give us a clear indication of of which direction that the infections have come from. And Boyd, I know this isn't the same strain as bird flu as has been seen in other parts of the world, and that has been much more serious. The measures that were put into place, for example, in the UK were very stringent. They were very strict rules if you followed what's gone on there. No, I haven't. There's dozens and dozens of dish different strains. I'll say there's some very big air breaks in America. They're probably more of a concern because those ones over there are actually you can they can infect humans as well. So that's more of a problem. But that's the the high density farming is the real problem here. We're not seeing any problems in the in the pasture based businesses of the low, low density end of the market.