chickens and bird flu

[wannabegreenfingers]

Hi
am new to this forum, and am soon to get our first couple of chickens for the garden. What do you do about bird flu and garden chickens? what are the risks etc?
or am i being paranoid
Penny

[Hilary B]

Hi
am new to this forum, and am soon to get our first couple of chickens for the garden. What do you do about bird flu and garden chickens? what are the risks etc?
or am i being paranoid
Penny

I doubt there is anything you can 'do about it', but at worst (and there have been remarkably few cases in even wild birds in this country, and some of those were of different strains), you may lose your chickens (unfortunate I know, but not to compare with falling ill yourself). Last I heard the only human cases were in people who virtually lived with their chickens.

[CountryFayre]

There's always risks concerned with any livestock but you have to put things into perspective in life. How many people have actually died of H5n1 in this country so far (nil) compared to how many people die of human flu each year. The risk is there but so are a lot of others. Unfortuantely people always like to jump on the bandwagon with things and I think the media love to hype things up so they have something to report.