Poultry throughout Netherlands ordered caged after bird flu outbreak

The Ministry of Agriculture is immediately imposing a nationwide obligation to keep poultry indoors and screened off from outside. This is happening after bird flu was detected on Monday at an organic chicken farm in Putten. Bird flu has also been discovered just across the border near Nijmegen in Kleve, Germany.

“Based on these two infections and all available information about outbreaks in other member states of the European Union, the risk of infection of a poultry farm in the whole of the Netherlands has been estimated as moderate to high,” the Ministry said. That is why the decision was made to keep poultry indoors. The farmers’ organization LTO had also requested it.

Minister Femke Wiersma spoke of a “severe measure that must be taken with due consideration. Also because of the effect on the animal welfare of the poultry.” The measure is hitting poultry farmers and people with hobby animals hard, but “the safety of the animals is paramount,” the Minister said.

Bird flu was last detected in the Netherlands almost a year ago. The caging requirement was in effect from November last year until spring. On April 24, the Ministry lifted the caging requirement in the last regions (the Limburgse Peel and the Gelderse Valley). A caging requirement was in effect in the Netherlands for a large part of last year.

The caging requirement applies to commercially kept poultry, except for pheasants and ratites (like ostriches, rheas, emus, and kiwis). The latter are subject to a screening requirement, as are hobby poultry.