From February 12, 00.00 hrs, there is a compulsory duty for commercial birds throughout the Netherlands. Minister Carola Schouten of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality announced this in a press release on Tuesday.
The herding obligation comes into effect because an outbreak of bird flu was found at a hobby location in Bretzfeld, Germany. The ministry reports that the rearing obligation is being introduced to prevent Dutch poultry farms from having to deal with infections.
Schouten had previously imposed an obligation for companies to clean and disinfect transport means for animal species that came from countries where bird flu had already broken out twice. This now also applies to means of transport that originate from Germany.
In December of last year there was already an outbreak of the infectious avian flu virus H5N8 in eastern Poland. Outbreaks have also been reported in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine and the Czech Republic.
Earlier, several major players in the poultry sector had already warned that bird flu, which is currently spreading in Central and Eastern European countries, could spread to the Netherlands. The sector already asked Schouten in a letter to impose a temporary shedding obligation.
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