Less than “bootiful” — that was how some of the 1,000 workers at the Bernard Matthews factory farm in Holton, Suffolk, yesterday described the company’s handling of the avian flu crisis.

Amid fears for their health and jobs, workers said that they had received no assurances from the “white hats”, the line leaders who supervise them.

One “yellow hat”, or general employee, who works in the chilled area of the complex where slaughtered birds are cleaned and stripped of breasts, legs and wings, said information was being passed only unofficially and by word-of-mouth.

Luke, 21, said: “With the amount of information we have been given, we are petrified. We don’t know whether the infection is in the meat. We don’t know whether it’s contagious. We don’t know whether the company is saying everything is safe just to save face or whether it is fact.

“People are taking a wide berth of us, people who know we work at Bernie’s.” He spoke as the company completed its cull of 159,000 turkeys, each of which had spent its life in an area little larger than an A4 sheet of paper.

The cull was carried out by 60 Portuguese workers wearing protective gear and working around the clock in two shifts, for which they were paid triple time of £24 an hour.

Adriano Guedes, a migrant workers project consultant for the GMB union, who is himself Portuguese, said: “They were offered the job by Bernard Matthews on Saturday. I don’t know if it was them who decided to do the work. It might be something to do with the financial incentive.”

He said that the men are taking a tablet a day as a preventive measure and, after the cull, would be taking a Tamiflu injection, followed by regular medical checks.

He said: “So far I haven’t heard of any concerns. They are OK because they are wearing protective clothing.”

After the birds are killed, the corpses are loaded on to lorries for a final journey to incineration in Staffordshire. “It’s like Auschwitz,” said another worker visibly upset. “Every single bird has been gassed. We haven’t been offered antiviral drugs. We haven’t been told anything about the disease. A lot of people are seriously worried about their livelihood, not to mention their health.”

Fears persisted despite a statement from the company, which farms eight million turkeys a year in Britain, aimed at reassuring the workforce.

A spokesman said: “Bernard Matthews reiterates that none of the affected birds entered the food chain and there is no risk to consumers.

“The company meets, and in many cases far exceeds, Defra’s biosecurity standards for combating Avian flu.”

He added: “We have been in constant contact with all our staff, reassuring them that we have all the required measures in place for those who handle poultry. We also can confirm there are no jobs at risk.”

The company would not be drawn on the cause of the outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu while the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs carries out its inquiry, but rumours are rife among the workforce that an infected wild bird got into one of the 22 turkey sheds.

The company spokesman responded, saying that it would be misleading to comment until the Defra investigation had concluded. He said it was up to Defra, which is coordinating fumigation of the sheds, to declare when it was safe to restock.

Meanwhile, he declined to disclose the whereabouts of Mr Matthews, but said that the company founder was keeping a “close eye” on the situation.

Workers stayed away from the factory farm yesterday on company orders but are expected to return today.

As police maintained a 3km (1.8 mile) protection zone in a 10km surveillance zone, farmers and people who keep poultry were told to keep their birds indoors. Trading standards officials reported, however, that not everyone had observed the restrictions.

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