Some owners who want to vaccinate their flocks have fewer than ten birds in their backyards, but do not have anywhere suitable to house them if the Government orders birds to be locked indoors.

State vets have been inundated with requests for vaccines, but so far the Government has only agreed that 30,000 rare and endangered bird species kept in zoos should be vaccinated in an emergency.

Pattie O’Brien, a smallholder from Yeoford, Devon, is desperate to protect her geese. She has asked a vet for a vaccine and even looked for a vaccine on the internet and the black market. She said: “I’m not prepared to let my geese get this disease. I don’t want to lock them indoors. They are grazers on grass and you can’t cover that. This disease could be with us for ten years. Are we therefore saying all poultry, meat and eggs must come from birds confined to sheds?”

Two million doses of vaccine have been ordered from Intervet in the Netherlands and supplies will arrive by mid-March to start a vaccine stockpile. Organic and some free-range farmers are also to step up pressure on ministers to allow the vaccination of their outdoor birds before the autumn. This deadline is to protect flocks from wild ducks and swans returning to Britain after spending the summer in areas with huge reservoirs of the virus. The NFU has made clear it will vaccinate chickens if government scientists order it. Most commercial farmers, however, are resisting.

Sales of chicken and eggs remain largely unaffected, although some restaurants have responded to mounting pressure to remove poultry from their menus. McDonald’s has contingency plans that could see it providing alternatives to chicken nuggets and burgers. The City Inn Hotel in Birmingham has become the second restaurant to decide not to serve wildfowl “as a precautionary measure”. Roussillon, a Michelin-starred London restaurant, announced in October that it was removing chicken, foie gras and all game birds from its menu because of “uncertainty” about their safety.

Avian flu and how to combat it will be a dominant theme at today’s NFU annual general meeting in Birmingham.

Tim Bennett, NFU president, will make a plea to the media today not to frighten consumers. “Scaremongering will destroy the British poultry industry,” he will say. “Remember eating chicken, meat and eggs, cooked properly, is safe.”

There was alarm among British chicken farmers over the apparent lax attitude shown to the threat of the H5N1 virus by French farmers. Charles Bourns, chairman of the union’s poultry board, said: “I saw a TV interview with a neighbouring farmer to the infected French turkey farm and he didn’t seem to be at all concerned about any threat. He wasn’t wearing overalls and he was perfectly happy to let a TV crew traipse over his farm. If that is their mentality, it is no wonder that area, close to lakes and with lots of wild birds, has an outbreak.”

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Would you live on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall?
• Wish you were here, says Iraq tourist board
• Russian policeman’s corruption plea to Putin