May 10, 2004

 

 

B.C. Poultry Industry Needs Time To Recover

 

According to an Agriculture Ministry official, it could be next March or later before the Fraser Valley poultry industry is back in full production after recovering from the avian flu crisis.

 

Rick Van Kleeck, a waste management engineer, said on Friday that the process to full production would vary for farmers of broilers, layers or breeder flocks.

 

"The process of starting up the industry is fairly short for the broilers, but is quite lengthy for the layer flocks," he said.

 

"The breeding flocks themselves will have to get new genetics in to start their process of producing new eggs."

 

Three-quarters of the Fraser Valley's poultry industry has been depopulated so far, in a bid stop the avian flu that hit in February.

 

The target date to wipe out the entire 19 million birds in the commercial industry is May 21.

 

Birds from infected flocks are being killed and disposed of through means such as composting. Meanwhile, birds from healthy flocks are being processed for sale.

 

There has not been a new outbreak of the avian flu for a few weeks, which Mr. Van Kleeck said has officials breathing easier.

 

If there are no other outbreaks and farmers have properly cleaned their barns to standardize the process of restocking, the farms could begin by the end of June.

 

"But if anything goes wrong along the way, like one of the farms hasn't done their cleaning and disinfection adequately, then the clock gets restarted and we have to wait another six weeks," Mr. Van Kleeck said.

 

Steps in making a farm disease-free include killing and disposing of all the birds on the farm.

 

Besides heat-treating the manure to ensure it is flu-free, the barn must be cleaned and disinfected.

 

There is a three-week waiting period after disinfection. After this period, a small number of sentinel birds are put in the barns for three weeks to determine if they have picked up any virus.

 

"The day the industry can repopulate in the Fraser Valley, is dependent on when the last barn has its sentinel birds clear the three-week period of having no disease," said Mr. Van Kleeck.

 

He said the decontamination process is the most important from an industry prospective.

 

"The last thing they want is one farm repeatedly becoming positive again and again, because they haven't cleaned up properly. It holds the whole industry back from repopulating."

 

There are about 700 poultry farms in the Fraser Valley.

 

Forty commercial farms and 10 backyard flocks were infected with a highly contagious form of the bird flu since the outbreak started.

 

Two people contracted conjunctivitis, or pink eye, from working with the birds. But this form of avian flu is not considered dangerous to humans.