No bird flu found on culled Biddinghuizen chicken farm

There is no sign of bird flu on a chicken farm in Biddinghuizen, Felvoland, the Dutch food and consumer product safety authority NVWA announced on Monday. Some 21 thousand chickens on the farm were preventatively killed last week after bird flu was found at a nearby meat duck business, the Telegraaf reports.

The NVWA checked a total of nine farms in the area, but found no sign of bird flu. The bird flu found at the duck farm was the infectious variant H5N8. 

The culled farm is located only about 1 kilometer away from the duck farm. The NVWA decided to cull the chickens on the farm immediately, in an effort to prevent the highly infectious disease from spreading. 

The poultry sector in the Netherlands is on high alert against bird flu after H5N8 was found in wild birds in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland and Switzerland early this month. In the Netherlands all poultry was ordered caged and visits to poultry farms were limited in order to stop the disease spreading among Dutch animals.