All commercial poultry farmers in the Netherlands are obliged to house them from midnight. Minister Carola Schouten of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality has this decision taken after six dead swans were found near Kockengen in Utrecht. Two of the six birds were found to have bird flu.
Experts fear that there is a good chance that poultry farms will become infected with the virus, which means that a housing requirement is necessary. Duck farms are also obliged to properly store the litter in stables, so that wild birds cannot reach it.
When sprinkling in farms, poultry farmers must be careful that nothing comes into the barn from outside.
Since the discovery of the swans, the disease has also been diagnosed in a dead wigeon. It remains to be determined whether it is the same virus as in the swans.
The two mute swans in Utrecht have probably become infected because migratory birds from Russia took the virus with them. This is because several reports of bird flu have already been made in Russia.
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