A bird flu outbreak on a farm owned by one of Scotland’s biggest egg producers could mean a cull of almost 100,000 birds and tight restrictions imposed on a major egg packing unit.
The Scottish Government has confirmed that highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 had been found on Auchtygills farm near Strichen, a breeding unit for Farmlay Eggs, which has a throughput of five million eggs per week.
The outbreak will mean the immediate cull of 55,000 birds, while another 44,000 free range birds housed on the farm are also in jeopardy.
Farmlay’s managing director, Robert Chapman, said the full implications of the outbreak on his business are still unclear.
“We’re hoping the free range birds won’t have to be slaughtered because there are no clinical signs of disease, but obviously because they are on the same farm their future is unclear,” he said.
There are also fears the entire Farmlay business will be impacted by the imposition of a 3km protection zone and a 10km surveillance zone around the infected premises.
The packing centre lies within the 3k zone, which involves movement restrictions on poultry, carcasses, eggs, used poultry litter and manure to prevent any further spread of disease.
Mr Chapman said he is still waiting for official notification about the implications on his packing centre.
“It’s going to be difficult times,” he admitted.
“At the moment, we know we’ll have to make changes to comply but we’re still waiting for official notification.
“Until then we are in limbo.”
He said biosecurity had already been at the highest level on his farms and it isn’t clear how the premises had became infected.
“It’s difficult when the disease is in the wild bird population, but we’ll be doubling up on measures yet again as we don’t want to spread it anywhere else,” he said.
“Everything is locked down and we’re keeping staff on individual farms and trying to reduce all the risks.”
The outbreak follows a case of bird flu in a backyard flock near Ellon earlier this month.