CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- The Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) said on Monday, August 14, that it has exterminated some 16,000 heads of fowls as of Monday but is extending its culling process until five to six days due to limited manpower.
The quarantine officers are also faced with the predicament of looking for a suitable place to bury the chickens as the area around the farms is easily flooded by water. The dead stocks would have to be buried six feet underground.
After the culling, the farms would have to wait some 90 to 120 days as quarantine officers would have to disinfect the affected areas before new stocks could be introduced.
A BAI statement that the areas are bird flu-free is needed before operations would be resumed.
The BAI will also be making tests in farms under the seven kilometer controlled zones. These include farms in San Luis, Santa Ana, San Simon and Mexico towns to determine if the infection has not spread to the said areas.
Checkpoints been in placed in San Luis town, particularly in barangays San Carlos and Santa Rita, where six farms have recorded 37,000 fowls that have died of the Avian Influenza Type A Subtype H5.
The checkpoints are implementing the ban order issued by the BAI on the movement of birds and poultry products from the affected areas of the town. Some 90 quarantine officers have also been deployed in the area.
The ban includes poultry manure which is a main food source for aquaculture.
Currently, a one-kilometer radius quarantine area within San Luis town and another seven-kilometer radius controlled area is in effect.
The culling of the other poultry stocks within the infected areas have reportedly been started last Saturday, August 12. Caged fowls including stray fowls and fighting cocks in the town will be exterminated.
Some eight farms within the quarantine area will be affected by the culling. One farm in San Carlos has lost 11,000 birds through the culling process that involves placing the birds in sacks and spraying these with carbon monoxide.
The birds are then buried in six-foot deep graves.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) will be compensating raisers with P80 for each culled bird with the agency also set to provide loans for those affected.
The DA earlier said farmers did not immediately report the deaths, which spiked in July, because they thought were only from ordinary poultry disease. The deaths included ducks and quails.