Registering all of your chickens - new rules

[Whatthechicken]

Did everyone else know about this? I’ve found out from a meme on Twitter. To me, It’s just draconian at best, sinister at worst. I guess it’s the new strategy for controlling bird flu. Instead of locking down hens for 6 months of the year and disrupting industrial farming, any suggestion of bird flu in the area and your 7 rescue, pet hens will be culled. I know I’m cynical, but when you know how bad chickens fair in industrial farming and that nobody even bothers to develop drugs for chickens, because they are so disposable, despite them being such a huge part of the food chain, I just feel very sad for them.

That’s awful. I don’t have chickens anymore, used to have five as pets.i wouldn’t be happy about that at all.

I’ll risk the wrath of not registering mine…

Been trying all day to register mine, having only found out about it this morning - needless to say the DEFRA website is SNAFU and I have now given up! If it is correct, as @Whatthechicken says, that an avian flu outbreak in my area means my birds will be culled then I have no intention of registering now!

I have a contact who works for a associated agency, said he read about this a month ago. He said it is about avian flu, but if you don’t live within a radius of 1km of a poultry farm you’ll be ok.

They are going to be very busy for a few days, loads of people currently registering the chickens they have in their fridge for weds dinner.

Chickens make fantastic mental health wellbeing tools...
. Ime.

I’m not doing it. I’ve got 2 11 year old bantams left. They are completely free range and wander the village at will. Like fuck am I letting anyone cull them. They have survived 5 house moves, many a playful kitten and have been retrieved quite literally by the neighbours dog (thank goodness for soft mouths), DEFRA are not having them.

There lots of pet chickens in our rural small village, I bet none are registered.

People on Twitter are registering pigeons and crows in their gardens 😂

Also, absolutely no-one locked any of the pet ones down at point either, was all completely ignored. So I can’t see anyone rushing to comply with this.

If anyone from DEFRA comes looking I’ll hide them in the house, they are very fond of the dining room chairs for perching anyway, they’d happily live in.

It’s not about protecting industrial farming. It’s also about protecting wild birds. It’s so the APHA can monitor the spread of bird flu and the strains. Also totally incorrect to say chickens aren’t worth anything. An awful
lot of money and time is being spent by those industrial farmers and governments on vaccines. Currently watching France very closely who are giving it a go.

it’s really not about signing your birds up to be culled. If you are keeping outdoor poultry in the visit of a wild bird population that has an outbreak there’s no chance of your birds being ok. They’ll be dead before you know it.

Please please please do the responsible thing and register.

Mine are already well past average life expectancy, if bird flu gets them that’s absolutely fine, I don’t care. They are 11, they’ll die of something soon enough, much as I love the mad old dears I can’t keep them alive forever. I’m not registering them, registering them won’t stop bird flu spreading or the effects of old age. We are perfectly happy as we are thank you.

But it might help the APHA in tracking and therefore vaccines that are decimating our wild birds. It’s not just about chickens, it’s about protecting our wild bird population too.

Any excuse to share a photo, here’s the delinquent old ladies enjoying the bench under the fig tree.
They are family, not livestock. They follow my daughter to school and like to harass pigeons.

any tried via the uk gov website seems to be refusing to confirm email address via the code thats needed

Yes! This has been my experience too and I cannot be bothered anymore!

ive been trying two emails and then about 20 times to resend the code

I can't get a code either
Tried 2 different emails
Any tips?

not a clue so far

sorry, but there is no way they will vacinate every farm chicken, no way on earth. I do not believe, given what my eyes have seen when I rescue chickens, that many people actually care about chicken welfare. Only zoo birds are currently authorised for vaccination. Here, the government tells you why: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/avian-influenza-bird-flu-vaccination/avian-influenza-bird-flu-vaccination

When I take my chickens to the vets and they need antibiotics, they have to be given ones for dogs that I then water down.

The Government will create some spurious chicken disease and then order them to all be slaughtered....

Apparently they discussed killing everyone's dogs and cats during the start of COVID.

I just completed the form and emailed it-it says if you don't have a county number they will create you one -sent!

They already do against other things e.g salmonella. France are currently vaccinating against a strain of bird flu.

This has been the case in Ireland for years - the culling is scaremongering though - we had a 'keep indoors' (or for home keepers, do the best you can to keep everything under-cover) directive for a few months in lockdown, but it mainly just means that I get texted any changes to any laws/incentive schemes (most of which don't apply to poultry admittedly)

I think there is a problem where home flock owners don't know what's going on, and this is a way to communicate with them.

Do you realise how bad this bird flu is millions of wild birds died in South America last year. It is said it could decimate wild birds. It is not about chickens but protecting wild birds many who face extinction and this bird flu is a true risk to them.