Avian flu found on backyard coop in the Fraser Valley
Posted February 6, 2015 3:47 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
CHILLIWACK (NEWS1130) – There’s a new case of avian flu in the Fraser Valley for the first time in about a month, this one at a backyard coop.
Commercial producers worry what this will mean for efforts to contain the outbreak. About 80 egg-laying chickens are on this Chilliwack farm.
Avian flu isn’t harmful if infected poultry is eaten, but Ray Nickel with the BC Poultry Association says this underscores their concerns about the lack of regulations for backyard coops. “If you have something start happening there, how do you manage or control it? We have no way of doing that.”
He worries about the day someone eats something infected with E. Coli from a backyard farm. “How do you trace that back and if it were to affect consumption patterns, who’s going to be ultimately affected by that but the commercial industry?”
Nickel is concerned this latest case will mean restrictions for commercial farms will have to remain in place another three months.
