Bird Flu Update

Here at Copas Turkeys, the current outbreak of Bird Flu is a huge concern and could be catastrophic for our business. This spread of bird flu is 6 weeks ahead of last year, which was the worst we had ever seen, so we are expecting this year’s variant to be even worse.

This year, 48 million livestock units have been lost as a result of bird flu in the UK and Europe and in the last week alone, we have seen 16 new cases in the UK where farms have had to cull their entire livestock. There have been cases which have seen 85% mortality rates in just a few days, specifically in turkeys. Tom Copas has 3 friends in the speciality turkey sector who have been affected and it is uncertain if 2 of them will produce turkeys ever again as they will not be able to use their farms next year and hence miss out on trading for 2 years.

This situation is very serious, and we are taking every step to try to mitigate our chances of getting the disease. We will be housing our birds in barns, in the hopes of reducing the chances of getting it by 50%; this is not ideal, but it is a necessary measure. Due to the birds being in such close proximity, we are now very concerned about what might spook or scare the birds, such as fireworks. To reduce the potential spread of this disease between Copas sites, we will be having site specific machinery, tools and staff; this will also give us traceability of who has been at which site. We have also stopped all non-essential visits to the farm as every step we can make to mitigate our chances of putting our birds and business at risk.

We will be increasing our biosecurity, as it has been shown the disease is often walked into sheds, by having specific footwear and overalls worn inside our barns. Foot dips for walkers entering and exiting the site, with disinfectant in, have been placed around the farm so it would be hugely appreciated if visitors could place their feet in and out of these dips. We are asking people to walk around the perimeter of our turkey paddocks to limit the traffic and footfall in the areas outside the entrances to our turkey houses and we have put up temporary signs for diversions and suggested walking routes.