No free-range eggs due to avian flu safety
FREE-RANGE eggs are no longer available in the island, as UK and island chickens are being kept indoors to avoid avian flu.
Castel Farm Eggs announced yesterday that its chickens would be remaining indoors as a result of the high risk epidemic, which removes their free-range status.
‘Our chickens are being kept in their barns at this time for their own safety and welfare due to the avian flu outbreak,’ said co-owner Emma Brooks.
‘Any outbreak of this kind is extremely worrying for any poultry keepers and especially when it is your livelihood. We are hoping that it will only be short-lived but you just don’t know with these things sadly how long they will last.’
Eggs from hens that have been kept in barns for 16 weeks can no longer be labelled as free-range, and many British farms have been forced to keep their free-range poultry inside due to the outbreak of bird flu.
Castel Farm Eggs’ eggs are technically now classed as barn eggs, instead of free-range, however Mrs Brooks said they would remain in the current packaging.
‘It is the same in the UK with all free-range chickens there being kept in their barns as well, so currently no one is able to supply free-range to the egg market,’ said Mrs Brooks.
‘We don’t have the packaging to re-market our eggs as barn, so they will have to remain in the same black free-range boxes.’
Environment & Infrastructure issued precautionary measures at the beginning of February which required all poultry keepers to register their birds with the States vet and implement good bio-security measures to reduce transmission from wild birds.
Mrs Brooks said that the States vet has now given strict advice to keep all poultry inside.
Castel Farm Eggs produces approximately 13,000 eggs a day, and completely sell out at times, which Mrs Brooks believes is down to the awareness of the welfare of caged hens compared to barn and free-range eggs, where the chickens are free to roam inside or outside.
‘The thought of potentially losing all your animals if you were to contract avian flu is unthinkable, but sadly no one has a choice in the matter,’ she said.
‘We are hoping that this will not affect sales of our eggs and that our lovely customers will understand and continue to buy our product.’
Alliance supermarket declined to comment, however had fully stocked shelves of free-range eggs in store yesterday.
The packaging of local eggs will remain the same, however it is unknown if this will be the case for imported eggs.
