Poultry producers warned against co-grazing with livestock

As the UK poultry industry braces itself for a “difficult” autumn and winter of avian influenza infections, a strong warning is being issued to producers who also keep cattle and sheep.

They are advised not to co-graze these livestock with their birds and to avoid the sharing of air space in buildings.

The warning comes as cases of avian influenza among dairy cattle in the US continue to grow, raising alarm at Defra.

See also: Tips on ensuring poultry biosecurity measures are effective

Its head of exotic disease control, Gordon Hickman, says these cases show a “spillover” from dairy cattle into poultry.

As a result, Defra is increasing its activity around testing co-located livestock on UK poultry units.

“I would urge you not to have co-located animals on your farms.

“If you have diversified into poultry or diversified into livestock, make sure you have separate staff,” he warned farmers.

“Mixed species and diversity are a problem, particularly for secondary C&D [cleansing and disinfection]”.

Gordon cautioned producers against keeping cattle, pigs and sheep in sheds that share airspace with poultry and also warned: “Shared workers are not a good thing.’’

He also advised against grazing sheep on ranges, particularly lactating sheep.

“I really wouldn’t want [them] grazing at the same time. It must be a risk.

“All these viruses can affect mammals, so the further you can separate them, the better.”

Winter outlook

Another season of over-summering of avian influenza in wild birds means that there will “almost certainly” be a challenging few months ahead for infection in kept poultry.

“We are planning for another difficult autumn and winter,” confirmed Gordon.

He was not prepared to estimate numbers but said the picture was looking more like 2021-22 – when there were 158 outbreaks in the UK, rather than 2022-23, which saw 207 outbreaks.

“We think it is going to be worse than the last 12-month period,” he added.

With vaccination yet to be trialled in the UK, and surveillance around inoculation currently seen as cost-prohibitive, rigorous biosecurity remains the first and best line of defence against infection.

Attitude to biosecurity

The principal biosecurity weakness on many commercial units is an “attitude-behaviour gap” by people.

Good biosecurity infrastructure, from foot dips to netting, will only get units “halfway there” on preventing infection if there is no biosecurity culture among farmers, their staff and visitors.

“It doesn’t take much to walk or drop it [the virus] into a shed; you have got to prevent that ‘people matter’ from coming into contact with birds,” said Gordon.

Farmers at the conference raised concerns about new higher tree planting targets on poultry ranges and a requirement by planning authorities for large attenuation ponds – bodies of water they say cannot be netted.

Pond risk

Gordon said there was no evidence that planting trees had increased cases of bird flu on free-range units, but “the more attractive you make a range to gulls or water birds, then the more you increase that risk”.

He said: “I suspect that it is ponds on farms, not trees, that are going to affect this, because nesting birds are not at the moment linked to the spread of the virus.

“Ponds are bad, but there are other factors at work on this.”

He was urged to make the case to the UK government against requirements by local planning authorities for ponds.

“It’s a difficult one, we have attempted in the past to try to influence planning permissions. We will take it away and see if we can move forward in that space,” he said.

Gordon Hickman was speaking at the recent Poultry Network Live conference at Harper Adams University.