First H-5 Control Zone Lifted

Monday, 20 July 2015 12:38

Farmers in Oxford County got the news they were hoping for today as one of the H-5 control zones has been lifted.

The other control zone should be lifted next Wednesday. 54 farms have been impacted by the quarantines after three farms were hit with the H-5 Avian Influenza. Heart FM spoke with Cathy Dibble who owns a broiler chicken farm with her husband near Drumbo. They are in the second quarantine zone and says things are starting to return back to normal. " Once the quarantines are lifted for both zones, life is going to get back to normal for us, but we are certainly all going to be more cautious as far as bio-security is concerned and hopefully, the big concern now will be in the fall when these migratory birds head back south that they don't bring another round of infections to the poultry sector."

Since the first case over 80,000 turkeys and chickens have been destroyed in Oxford because of the H-5 strain. Dibble admits the financial impact will take some time to recover for turkey and chicken farmers in Oxford and some more than others. She tells Heart FM when the second initial outbreak occurred they were two days away from placing their barns full of new day old baby chicks. "So we were unable to place our chickens here at home, so we had to scramble and find tow other farmers further away from the affected farms who looked after our chickens for one flock, so that was very stressful, we had never met these people before and we are basically handing our livelihood over to them."

Dibble says it was amazing how the industry came together to support one another during this whole ordeal. "Everybody that we know was so supportive, when we were trying to find host farmers for our chickens and just helping out in every, providing concern and our friends and neighbours were so supportive, the entire industry worked together, which was great to see and we are very thankful to the two host farmers who took care of our chickens with only a few days notice."