Poultry must be kept indoors or shielded across the Netherlands

Agriculture State Secretary Silvio Erkens has imposed a nationwide housing order (ophokplicht) and a shielding order (afschermplicht) after bird flu was confirmed on three farms. The virus was found in Lutjegast (Groningen) on 26 October, Middelie (Noord-Holland) on 27 October and Grootegast (Groningen) on 28 October.

Why it matters

• Commercially kept pheasants and ratites (running birds) need only be shielded from wild birds, because keeping them indoors is practically impossible.
• Hobby chickens and other non-commercial risk birds fall under the shielding order, not the housing order.
• Risk birds may not be put on show anywhere in the Netherlands. Visits to bird housing are allowed only when necessary for public health, animal health, animal welfare or the health of people in the stable, and only with a hygiene protocol and registration.

Erkens said: "I realise that keepers of poultry with outdoor runs and hobby keepers are hit hardest by this." He added that it is still important to limit contact between kept birds and possibly infected wild birds as far as possible. Bird migration has begun, which may spread the virus further among wild birds.

The Lutjegast case was the first outbreak since July. About 45,000 egg-laying hens were culled as a precaution. It is the third time bird flu has hit that farm. At a care farm in Middelie, about 150 chickens were culled, and a movement ban on birds, eggs, manure and litter applied within 10 km of it.

The last housing order came in June, when many farms were hit. That wave began at a poultry farm in Gasselternijveenschemond (Drenthe), where 71,000 animals were culled.

The ministry says it wants to avoid facing this every year. It is working with the sector on a plan to make vaccination of laying poultry compulsory, and Erkens will send the plan to the Tweede Kamer at the end of the year.