Epizootics
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After the slaughter of millions of poultry at the start of the year, poultry farmers, “traumatized”, are struggling to fill their farms and replenish their cash flow. As the virus threatens to return in the fall, the industry is divided on the measures to be adopted to deal with it.
The virus may have disappeared from the farms, but the anxiety remains. Between February and May, a particularly severe episode of avian influenza (flu) devastated the flocks of waterfowl and poultry in the West of France, mainly affecting the Vendée (534 contaminated farms) and the Landes (229). The suddenness with which the virus spread had led to drastic measures: the depopulation of all farms affected by the disease, but also that of healthy livestock, as a preventive measure. A total of 18.2 million animals were slaughtered in the country.
Since then, the epidemic has slowed down. No new cases were detected on farm following May 3. However, the shock wave generated by this «catastrophe» has not finished resonating with breeders, who for the most part rub shoulders with buildings that have remained empty since the slaughter of their animals. Indeed, repopulation takes time. The resumption of activity is only authorized following a crawl space of approximately three to four months, depending on the viral pressure in the area, and the cleaning of each farm. “It’s a huge machine that needs to be restarted”, summed up with Freed Eric Coutan, poultry farmer and vice-president of the Vendée Chamber of Agriculture. And, even once this stage is over, the breeders are not at the end of their troubles. A large part of the French breeding stock was contaminated and slaughtered at the start of the year, and hatcheries are unable to meet demand. Po…
