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The State’s turkey producers are on a knife edge ahead of Christmas dinners, as fears mount that avian flu will hit additional flocks before processing begins in early December.
Hundreds of thousands of turkeys are expected to be dispatched to shops, butchers and supermarkets from the first week in December onwards – just over one week away.
Already a flock of 30,000 turkeys has been humanely culled in south Co Monaghan after the avian influenza virus subtype H5N1, was confirmed. The virus has also been found in 49 individual wild birds across a total of eight counties. It is highly contagious among birds but there have been no reported cases of human infection and so the risk to people is considered very low.
Now many turkey growers whose birds are set to peak in about 10 days are worried they are in a race against time to protect their flocks against infection through wild birds, and get their turkeys to the processors.
Ger McMyler who rears 3,000 turkeys on his family farm near Maynooth in Co Kildare has the honour of supplying turkeys to the Lord Mayor of Dublin’s annual Christmas Day dinner for the homeless.
Mr McMyler who is the third generation of his family to produce turkeys for Christmas said some were also delivered to hostels around Dublin “so we will be doing what we can to keep wild birds out of the sheds over the next two weeks”. “It is hard to keep the odd crow out of the sheds, so it is a worry but we will be trying very hard,” he said.
In Ireland the first reported infection of farmed poultry was confirmed last Friday, November 19th, which Mr McMyler said was about one month earlier than the first outbreak of bird flu in Ireland last year. Since this outbreak, The Department of Agriculture has issued a housing order, requiring that all farmed poultry is kept indoors.
Mr McMyler’s concern was reflected by Nigel Reneghan, chairman of the IFA’s Organics Project Team and former chairman of the IFA’s Poultry division. Mr Reneghan said on Tuesday that there was “a real possibility of turkey shortages” if the virus spread. Such an event would also result in massive losses for turkey growers, he said.
However Andrew Boylan, chairman of the IFA Poultry Committee struck a more optimistic position and took issue with the fears over the supply of turkeys. He said : “I can assure you that we are in a position to deliver Bord Bia quality assured birds to all who want them”. Mr Boylan who rears about 80,000 “broiler” chickens said “bio-security” around farms was very good. He said poultry farms were very concentrated in north Co Monaghan, but the farm that was subject of the recent outbreak was in south Monaghan where poultry farms were not as dense in the area.
Mr Boylan said biosecurity was the key to preventing the spread among farmed poultry and he knew “farmers are being very, very strict about this”.
The National Disease Control Centre (NDCC) part of the Department of Agriculture is closely monitoring the situation and in regular communication with industry stakeholders including IFA.