Bag's Rants

Another knee jerk on Bird Flu.

Seems our Government wants to set up yet another DB to control, sorry, monitor what people with poultry at home are doing. Read more here. Why is it our first reaction to want to set up another DB? We are living in the Government DB age. The downside of technology.

A senior industry figure says 'We are slow to learn the lessons of foot-and-mouth.' Well, Yes, we are. But not in the way you mean. Our response to foot and mouth was to annihilate every infected animal plus any animals within a parsec of the outbreak. Regardless of the situation at those places. Where many had segregated their animals to minimise risk

Now they are trying to imply that all home reared animals need to be registered. Now I can understand about large scale production that gets into the food chain but every bit of poultry in the UK. Will they be slaughtered the first time an infected bird sets foot in Dover? I suspect so.

Some of the advice is sound like take sick birds to a vet. But let's face it responsible owners look after their livestock anyway. Do we need another layer of bureaucracy on home reared foods. Jeez, we buy goats and chickens for Africa. Do we need to leverage another 30% to cover the paperwork for what is a natural process of managing livestock?

What can be safer than food you have grown at home that you know the history of and have kept healthy. Kept away from rats and mice etc.

posted by Bag @ 1:33 pm