Nearly 1.8 million farmed and caged birds have been culled in the past three months due to the spread of bird flu in the UK, according to the BBC.
There have been 33 outbreaks of the virus on farms and on Wednesday the government said poultry farmers in five more English counties would have to keep flocks indoors from Sunday.
The risk to humans remains low, with chicken and eggs safe to eat if cooked properly, but there are concerns about the impact bird flu is having on farmers’ mental health.
The government said it had acted quickly to cull all birds on infected premises “to protect Britain’s food security”, but acknowledged the devastating impact this was having.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the 1.78 million birds culled since the first outbreak on November 5 was a “small proportion” of the industry’s total output, which is around 20 million birds a week.
At the start of the worst bird flu outbreak, 3.2 million birds were culled between October 2021 and September 2022.
One of the farmers affected in 2021 was Lucy Sanderson, from North Yorkshire, who says people are not aware of the impact the poultry culling has had on farmers’ mental health.
“It was awful. I cried for a week – and I thought I was a strong person,” she said.
“As well as losing my job, my income, my everyday life, I also ruined the lives of my employees because I had to make them redundant. The knock-on effect has been huge.
“I’m terrified it’s going to come back.”
‘Huge emotional strain’
Gary Ford, of the British Free Range Egg Producers Association, said there was “a lot of concern and disquiet among poultry farmers and in some respects panic”.
Biosecurity restrictions are currently in place in England, Wales and Scotland as part of an Avian Flu Prevention Zone.
On Wednesday, it was announced that all farmers and poultry farmers in Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Cheshire, Merseyside and Lancashire will also have to house their flocks from midnight on 16 February.
Stay-at-home orders are already in place in the East Riding of Yorkshire, City of Kingston upon Hull, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Shropshire, York and North Yorkshire.
James Mottershead, chairman of the National Farmers Union’s poultry council, said the bird flu outbreaks were putting “huge emotional and financial strain on farming families”.
“Farmers take great care to protect the health and welfare of their flocks and to ensure that they are safe and healthy, and that they are not going to be able to do anything about it, but they are not going to be able to do anything about it.” of their birds and it is devastating to see this compromised,” he added.
A Defra spokeswoman said compensation would be paid to any farmer for any healthy birds that were culled for disease control purposes.
“We know the devastating impact that bird flu has had on farmers and poultry producers, which is why we have taken additional action in recent weeks, including introducing housing orders in the worst-affected areas,” she said.
“We acted quickly to cull all birds on infected premises to stop the risk of the disease spreading and protect Britain’s food security.”
