I am just writing a short summary of what I said at the Parish Council Meeting on Thursday 13th July in response to numerous rumours circulating around the village at present.
Firstly, the rumour that when we restock Top Farm and Lower Farm, we will be changing to intensive farming is not true. The legal definition of intensive farming is birds more than 25kg per square metre (as is stated on the GB poultry register), we currently stock at 9 birds per square metre, with the birds weighing 1.8kg. When we restock in February, we will again stock at 9 birds per square metre on the same flat deck system as before, the only difference is the chickens will not have access to the range. When a vaccine for Bird Flu becomes available, we will revert back to Free Range, our decision to change temporarily barn egg production is solely for welfare reasons. At Lower Farm we will no longer keep ducks, so the mobiles on the field will be removed and the muck carted away after 12th November when our restrictions are lifted. We will keep our quail in one of the buildings at 6.2 kg per square metre, both a long way from being intensive!!!
Secondly, the sheds at Top Farm have not been mucked out, this will not happen until after 12th November, and the muck removed from the village, we are currently removing equipment in preparation to mucking out and washing.
Whilst I understand the logic behind the idea of no flies with no chickens, means that the chickens are the sole cause of the flies. I have two comments about this as the fly survey shows we are not a truly fly free village, also in May 2018 we had a visit from environmental health because of large fly numbers in the village, and we were empty!!!
If you are in any doubt about my sincerity I suggest you listen to my interview on Radio 4’s Farming Today on Tuesday 4th July, available on BBC sounds , or feel free to contact me by email [email protected], due to current biosecurity restrictions we are unable to offer any visits around the poultry, if and when restrictions are eased we will be happy to show people around.
David Perowne
