The past 24 hours have been a nightmare for the Court family, culminating yesterday with the slaughter of their flock of 25,000 hens. At the same time Defra announced laboratory results from dead chickens confirmed the outbreak of the highly contagious H7 strain of bird flu. He said: “The source of the disease is not yet known and Defra will continue to make further investigations to try to identify this.
All birds on the farm will be culled to try to help contain or eradicate the disease. “We would urge everyone within the Defra surveillance zone to remain vigilant and to maintain suitable bio-security measures on their farms. This has been a devastating 24 hours for us and we would ask that we are now left to come to terms with what has happened and make plans for the future.” A 10km surveillance zone was placed around the farm banning all bird movement to prevent the spread of the disease. More
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