Chicken farmer Theo Bos has three overalls. Like three pairs of boots and three number thirteen wrenches. In fact, he has three copies of everything he needs every day for his work as a poultry farmer; one for each of his chicken houses.
Visitors must first take a shower. Take off all clothes, soak in shampoo and soap and then put on the company overalls. The vet also cannot escape the shower protocol and even has his own overalls on Bos’s farm. In addition, no one enters the farm grounds without his permission. An entrance gate separates the farm, which is located just outside Barneveld, from the rest of the world. Everything to keep the bird flu, which has been raging fiercely since last autumn, at bay.
But for the past 175 days, Bos hasn’t worn overalls. In the stables there is only the sound of the rushing wind. A few sheep graze on the meadows around the stables. The floors are snow white, the laying nests empty, the egg belt does not roll. Only the smell of chicken shit reveals that until last April 14, about 65,000 chickens cackled in the stables and foraged in the meadows.
Dead in half a day
On his way back from a friend trip to Germany, Theo Bos received a phone call from his son. “Gerben called at half past two in the afternoon that there was too much outage.” Normally Bos and his son come across one or two dead laying hens a day. “Now fifty chickens were dead, when the vet came three hours later there were already a hundred chickens.” If a chicken becomes infected with bird flu, death will follow within half a day.
When Bos arrived in the evening and went to have a look in the stable, he knew enough. “The chickens were quiet, huddled together.”
At half past two at night, Bos received a confirming phone call from the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA): there is bird flu at his company.
At eight o’clock in the morning the first cars with barrels of CO . arrived2 to gas all the chickens. Then the clearers came in white suits and tipped the thousands of birds into trucks with wheelbarrows. Bos got nothing from all that. “I didn’t want to experience it, that’s not good for peace of mind.”
In addition, he had to inform his colleagues in the area. “I’ve been living in suspense for six months, like: when will it be my turn? Well, on April 14.” Since then, the family business has come to a standstill. Bos: “Five generations in this place.”
From Spitsbergen to Eastern Ukraine
The current bird flu epidemic, which was first detected in the Netherlands in October 2021, is the worst ever in Europe, according to figures from the European health service ECDC. Birds are infected from Spitsbergen to eastern Ukraine. Nearly 2,500 companies have been affected, more than 48 million birds have been culled. The virus is also circulating in the Netherlands. Bird flu has been detected at more than eighty farms, and dozens of other farms have been culled as a preventive measure.
Also read: Bird flu is always around. So why are virologists now holding their breath?
The situation is ‘serious’, says Thijs Kuiken, professor of pathology at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam. “Poultry farms are reported positively almost daily, and the bird flu virus has continued to circulate in wild birds during the summer months.” And that worries Kuiken, because normally the bird flu virus disappears in the summer. As with humans, flu viruses in birds are less likely to survive in hot weather.
In addition, Kuiken is concerned about the further development of the virus, because three cases have been detected abroad in which people became infected. “They had no to very mild flu symptoms,” says Kuiken. At the moment, the virus does not seem to spread from person to person.
The previous outbreak in 2003
In 2003 there was also a major outbreak of bird flu in the Netherlands. “255 companies had infections at the time,” says Sjaak de Wit, professor of poultry health care at Utrecht University. “But that outbreak lasted only three months.” All infected farms were culled, as well as nearby poultry farms, such as that of Theo Bos. “And after that, the virus was eradicated.”
Now the virus has been present in the Netherlands for almost a year, because it haunts wild birds. “Clearing is no longer a final solution,” says De Wit. “It does stop the infection on one company, but the virus itself is not gone.” Terns, storks, cranes in Israel, ducks and geese – the virus is passing from bird species to bird species. “One hundredth of a gram of material from an infected duck, for example, is enough to infect an entire barn of chickens,” says De Wit. And that material can get into the stable through the air, someone’s shoes, a soliciting mouse or a feather. De Wit: “The Netherlands has now become a kind of minefield.”
Clearing is no longer a final solution. It does stop the contamination at one company, but the virus itself is not gone
Sjaak de Wit professor of poultry health care at Utrecht University
Even while his chickens were being culled, Theo Bos was already sitting around the table with the appraiser. His company is compensated for the value of all chickens and eggs from a solidarity fund to which the poultry farmers themselves contribute. Well organized, Bos thinks. Normally you can welcome new chickens into the barn six weeks after a cull and the business starts up again. But it has been quiet in Bos’ stables for six months now. That’s because there is a transport ban in his region – no live poultry can be transported within a 10-kilometer radius of an infected farm. This also applies to the young new chickens that Bos needs to produce eggs again.
“Frustrating”, says chicken farmer Bos. Because as long as there are no chickens foraging in his barn, he has no income. And he only receives compensation for the clearance, not for the months of vacancy of the chicken houses. Bos: “That costs serious money.”
What makes it even more frustrating for Bos is that there is a solution to the bird flu outbreak. “Vaccinate,” Bos calls out. And he’s not alone. Also in the reformed Barneveld, which has a relatively low vaccination rate among the population for the corona virus, the word vaccinate is often heard when it comes to bird flu.
Gelderland Valley
And that’s not surprising, because the region is very connected to the poultry sector. In the center you walk every ten meters against a meter high statue of a chicken — in lawns, on roofs, in shop windows. Or near the egg vending machine right next to the center – where a bronze chicken welcomes visitors. Everywhere in the Gelderse Vallei you are reminded of the importance of the poultry sector in the region.
Also read: Vaccinate if the confinement obligation no longer works
Vaccines against bird flu have been and have been used in some countries for years, says professor Sjaak de Wit. However, it is still banned in the European Union. “For years there was a non-vaccination policy, because massive culling of infected chickens, as in 2003, worked,” says De Wit. In addition, an infected chicken with the old vaccines was indistinguishable from a healthy chicken, so countries did not dare to import vaccinated chickens and their products because they could not find out whether that chicken might carry bird flu, says De Wit. “But with modern vaccines we can make that distinction.”
Only the laws and regulations are still pending. “These vaccines have not yet been registered in the European Union, pharmaceuticals are only now starting to register and produce them and countries still have to change the strict import rules,” De Wit sums up. “I hope we can vaccinate in two years.”
Fortunately, chicken farmer Theo Bos does not have to wait for that. The transport ban in Barneveld was lifted last Friday. After almost six months, young hens are foraging in his barn again. “Delicious,” Boss says, along with a photo of hundreds of hens in his barn. “The sound of the chickens is like music.”