Fear over Christmas turkey availability, price as government widens bird flu rules

All poultry and captive birds in England must be kept indoors from Nov 7 under new restrictions to fight avian flu, the government has announced, amid fears that shoppers could be hit by price rises due to shortage. 

The housing order comes after turkey farmers warned of a shortage this Christmas caused by the country’s largest ever bird flu outbreak. 

The British Poultry Council has said s Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the British Poultry Council, the trade body for the poultry meat industry, said the price of free-range turkeys was likely to rise. 

“The free-range side of the sector has been heavily hit and, at the moment, we are seeing numbers of about 30-35 per cent of free-range production either being directly affected by the disease or culled because of it,” he told BBC. 

About 5.5 million birds have now died or been culled since October 2021, including 2.3m birds this October alone. 

In total, more than 210 cases of bird flu have been confirmed since October 2021, including 80 confirmed cases in England this month. 

“We are now facing this year, the largest ever outbreak of bird flu and are seeing rapid escalation in the number of cases on commercial farms and in backyard birds across England,” said Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss. 

The disease circulates naturally in wild birds that can spread the flu to poultry and captive birds when they migrate to the UK. 

The mandatory order to keep birds indoors follows regional measures introduced in Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Essex earlier in the month. 

Bird keepers across the UK were then forced to follow strict biosecurity measures when an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) was introduced on 17 October. 

Measures introduced last week now allow farmers to kill and freeze turkey, geese and ducks and sell them as fresh closer to Christmas. The change is supposed to help producers avoid the risks of losing their flocks in a cull or to the disease.