From a poultry workers point of view

I work in the poultry industry here in the UK, and am amazed at the lack of information from my employer. Yes, the risk of bird flu coming to the uk in the short term is low, but it IS coming, and it might be soon. We have been giving a 2 page document telling us to stick to normal infection control procedures. This is OK at the moment, but it would be nice to have given us some information that we can actualy use when bird flu does come here.

Even the infection control procedures that are in place at this, time to prevent other types of infection, are rarely adhered to.


I would also be willing to answer any specific questons you have that i may be able to answer.

Originally posted by manta
We have been giving a 2 page document telling us to stick to normal infection control procedures.

Can you share the actual content of the document or a summary thereof?

i will give a quick quick outline of it to give you the idea, i would just scan it and upload it but i have no scanner and have limited time to type the whole thing up.

How can you recognise AI (avian flu) in chickens
LPAI will show as a respiratory disease and sometimes causes severe mortality in turkeys. HPAI is suspected in an case where there are any cases of very high mortality. Clinical and post-mortem signs are not often very useful in distingushing AI from other respiratory infections.

ANY VERY HIGH MORTALITY SITUATION SHOULD BE INVESTAGATED IMMEDIATELY TO RULE OUT AI

oh really? 3 days ago on our farm there was a mortality rate almost 20 times what it should have been for one day and i was told to wait and see what the mortality was like tomorrow!

How do you stop infection entering your farm

- If possible do not allow domestic poultry to come into contact with wild birds by keeping poultry indoors
- Do not have any direct or indirect contact where HPAI has been confirmed (currently widespread in asia and recently confirmed in russia, kazakhstan, romania and turkey)
-Have good bio security especially by having an effective footware barrier (change boots before entering houses)or using foot dips that contain fresh effective disenfectant; disinfecting vehicles onto the farm and policing the use of protective clothing.

Birds can easily get into the chicken sheds, we have had to let 5+ out in the last 3 months alone and as for the disinfecting of boots, vehicles etc, it is rare that anyone every bothers. Not a single feed lorry (which will have been on many other farms) bothers to use the disinfectant provided to spray on their wheels, this should be done all teh time not just to prevent AI but to stop other infections that can be brought onto a farm.

Will finish off later, No time left

Manta,
Your observations at work are not very reassuring. I realize that this is your livelihood, but given the stakes involved, I might start sending my resume around if I were you and find another line of work. At the very least, move to a farm that takes the bird flu threat more seriously.. yikes!

I look forward to hearing more about the information you've been given as soon as you can... It's not very encouraging to hear that the normal guidelines are rarely adhered to... but then, if you're not exactly being given much information from your employer people could be unaware as to the seriousness of the situation and the potential.

After having another read of the document im not to sure what elese i can post here that is of any real use here.

My main point is that is people knew how lax the disinfecting processes are, even when there is a risk of soemthing so serious as an end result, then there would be an uproar.

Your point about moving to a new farm wouldnt help much because they are all exactly the same, nobody can be botherd. I have been on other farms many many times, and whilst getting out of my car to disinfect my boots and spray the wheels of my car before entring the farm i was told not to bother with it.

I am seriously thinking about changing jobs, but there are very very few about here. its not as if i could quit tomorrow and walk into a new on on monday. I am unaware of a way of paying bills with fresh air, if any of you know how it can be done then let me know and i will quit tomorrow

If normal procedjures arent adhered to, what are the state of some of the chickens when they end up on our plate?
Do diseased chickens get sent along with the rest?

Sounds like we are screwed if they dont follow guidelines......

Originally posted by Denied
If normal procedjures arent adhered to, what are the state of some of the chickens when they end up on our plate?
Do diseased chickens get sent along with the rest?

Sounds like we are screwed if they dont follow guidelines......

NO they dont, it is part of my job ot see that they dont and i do my job to teh best of my ability. Every day i walk throigh each shed culling out small, injured, sick looking and anything that has died to stop disease spreading through the birds. they are also tested for many different bacteria before they go for slaughter to ensure they are safe to eat.

All of the above is part of my job which i take seriously and do to the best of my ability.

what you should probably bemore concerned about is what they chicken is fed to make it grow as fast as possible in as short a time as possible. From chick to the time they are slaughterd is as little as 34 days. as im not sure exactly what their feed comprises of im not going to go into detail, but with names like *grower* i will leave it up to you imagination. The average LEAN chicken can contain more than 1 pint of fat.

Hi All,
I was reading about the Avian flu because my mom is still eating chicken but, she's wearing gloves while preparing it for the oven. Because, it doesn't matter after it's cooked, right?

Anyway, I came across the "Epidemic in a cage" or something like that, that Loam made a link to. I saw on the global map that if you make a triangle of China, Iran, and Russia, the flu concentration is right in the middle.

Am I crazy. But, if people theorize it's a "population control" conspiracy, isn't it interesting that it's controlling the populations of our enemies first?
I always think like this. Maybe I'm dillusional as far as what our government (or whoever runs our country) will do. What do you guys think??
otterbaby

It's otterbaby again. I just finished the thread and read about the "grower" feed they give the chickens. If anyone knows what they feed chickens on poultry farms, I'd be very interested to know. It makes me definitely want to get free-range organic chicken from Whole Foods. Which, of course is more expensive. Only the rich survive everything, right.

But, hey, if anyone knows what happens to the virus after a turkey/chicken is cooked, let me know. Someone wrote they weren't going to eat a turkey for Thanksgiving. Isn't that silly, or does the virus survive cooking?

Originally posted by manta

Originally posted by Denied
If normal procedjures arent adhered to, what are the state of some of the chickens when they end up on our plate?
Do diseased chickens get sent along with the rest?

Sounds like we are screwed if they dont follow guidelines......

NO they dont, it is part of my job ot see that they dont and i do my job to teh best of my ability. Every day i walk throigh each shed culling out small, injured, sick looking and anything that has died to stop disease spreading through the birds. they are also tested for many different bacteria before they go for slaughter to ensure they are safe to eat.

All of the above is part of my job which i take seriously and do to the best of my ability.

what you should probably bemore concerned about is what they chicken is fed to make it grow as fast as possible in as short a time as possible. From chick to the time they are slaughterd is as little as 34 days. as im not sure exactly what their feed comprises of im not going to go into detail, but with names like *grower* i will leave it up to you imagination. The average LEAN chicken can contain more than 1 pint of fat.

I am glad to hear that you take your job seriously and help keep the public safe. Your insight from an industry insider's point of view is interesting.

Thanks for posting that, Manta! It's good to hear some real stuff from people involved in the industry.

Otterbaby, "bird flu" is a terrible way of doing population control, since almost all the deaths are deaths of birds. Fewer than 80 humans have been stricken with it and the death rate is about 9, if memory serves.

Byrd- But, you know I am suspicious that these types of (what is this a virus?) Anyway, I'm suspicious that they don't just evolve naturally.
On a diff. thread re: the same issue, FredT was discussing that SARS and this "bird flu" came out of the same area and China is involved in biowarfare experiments. So, if it wasn't a planned thing(like you said it's not effective enough). Then, maybe, there was an accidental contamination due to China's experimentation.

The virus does NOT survive if it is cooked properly. As far as i can see there is no real point to stop eating chicken, turkey or any other birds. About wearing gloves when getting the chicken ready for cooking, this is always a good idea form a general food hygiene perspective but because it is highly improbable that the bird has been invected with the virus then there is no real reason to do it to protect from the virus.

i did a bit of digging to find out what was in the *grower* feed then are given for the most part of their life.

Although the bulk of the feed is made up with corn and wheat there are some other ingredients.

The most unpleasant ingredient is chickens. "Spent Hen Meal" consists of whole hens, ground, steamed, and dried. While such an ingredient obviously contains all the nutrients necessary to make a hen, and the use of spent hen meal has been proven through long use to be safe, the concept is pretty offensive.

I found out that the use of hormones in the feed is banned but on occasions we have given our chickens oxacillin which i believe can make them grow faster.

It seems to me that the problem of feeding cows to other cows was the start of that brain wasting disease that spread to humans. I can't remember the version of Mad Cow that spread to some people, but it was tied back to turning a vegetarian cow into a cannibal.

I was looking around the web for information about Canadian chicken feed and found a few choice tidbits to peck at.

From the Canadian Chicken Farmers

So what's in chicken feed, anyway?

* The main ingredient of all chicken feed (88%) is grains and grain by-products, protein-producing seeds, and meal made from them such as canola or soybean meal. So all chickens are essentially "grain-fed."
* In much smaller quantities (around 10%), various other protein sources such as meat and bone meal/vegetable fats, are added to improve the nutritional content, taste and texture of the feed.
* In much, much smaller quantities (1.5%), mineral and vitamin supplements are commonly added to prevent any nutrient deficiencies.
* There are no hormones in chicken feed. In Canada, the use of hormones in chicken feed has been banned since the 1960s.
* Chicken feed may also contain minute levels (less than 1 per cent) of additives such as enzymes and antibiotics to prevent disease and digestive problems. All of these additives are subject to strict regulations and are used in conjunction with good management, vaccination and hygiene practices.

www.chicken.ca...

But you'll notice "In much smaller quantities (around 10%), various other protein sources such as meat and bone meal". So what is the source of the protein???

Eleven stillborn piglets that had been genetically engineered (GE) at the University Guelph found their way into poultry feed in January. But Canadian government officials say consumers shouldn’t be concerned.
On Feb. 12, the CFIA said that researchers at the University of Guelph , who have bred transgenic pigs designed to excrete more environmentally friendly manure, reported 11 stillborn piglets were missing from a freezer.

A subsequent investigation found the animals, which were awaiting incineration, had been mistakenly picked up and sent to a rendering plant in late January, ending up in the poultry feed.

The CFIA has determined that the batch of feed was sold to at least 30 premises and fed mostly to laying hens whose eggs have already been sold. A small amount was fed to broiling chickens and turkeys.

www.life.ca...

WOW....... Transgenic Pigs being fed to chickens to feed the masses. This may be an isolated case but that seems like a pretty big mistake.

There is also a case of BSE infected chicken feed being fed to cattle in Prince George and the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. Here is a link to the pdf.
www.healthcoalition.ca...

Still more:

The latest research shows just a milligram of infected feed is needed to trigger BSE in a cow, said Neil Cashman, professor of neurological disease at the University of Toronto.

According to Cashman, Canada should not be feeding any animals any material rendered from a cow because feed mix-ups are so common. He adds that the risk to humans is infinitesimal.

Cattle remains are still used as pig and chicken feed, but concerns about cross-contamination persist.

list.web.net...

And more......

Many of us were surprised to learn that despite the F.D.A.'s 1997 ban on feeding cattle cattle meat and bone meal, feedlots continue to rear these herbivores as cannibals. When young, they routinely receive ''milk replacer'' made from bovine blood; later, their daily ration is apt to contain rendered cattle fat as well as feed made from ground-up pigs and chickens – pigs and chickens that may themselves have grown up on a diet of ground-up cows. But the grossest feedlot dish we read about in our newspapers over breakfast has to be ''chicken litter,'' the nasty stuff shoveled out of chicken houses – bedding, feathers and overlooked chicken feed. Since this chicken feed may contain the same bovine meat and bone meal that F.D.A. rules prohibit in cattle feed, those rules are, in effect, all but guaranteed to break themselves.

www.bcpolitics.ca...

All this really paints a very ugly picture of the current state of our food supply. I don't see any way to stop this sort of cross contamination due to the sloppy nature of our farming industry.