October 15, 2012

Russian farms experience mass deaths of birds due to feed costs

Due to the difficult situation with feed prices, a number of poultry farms of Russian agricultural holding "Kirovhleb" have experienced mass deaths of birds.

"The poultry farms of agricultural holding "Kirovhleb" in recent months have had issues with feed stocks. On October 5, the veterinary inspection conducted at the Kostinskaya poultry farm, revealed that there was no feed at all. The farm needed a total of 33 tonnes of feed per day, but only purchased 10 tonnes, and not every day," the head of the Veterinary Department of the Kirov region Sergei Chuchalin said.

As of October 5, 70,000 chickens died. At a press conference on October 10, the head of Kirovhleb Mikhail Prusak said that this figure continues to rise and the current death toll was closer to 100,000. He also confirmed that the cause of death for the birds was underfeeding.

"This difficult situation appeared to be due to the fact that poultry feed prices almost doubled in August, and the company could not buy in the required amount. Due to lack of working capital the company failed to accumulate any backlog of feed," Prusak said.

Currently, Kirovhleb poultry farms still have a stock of 560,000 poultry. The dead birds were disposed of under strict supervision of experts from the regional veterinary services.

Poultry deaths are continuing so the figure of losses could rise in the coming days.