The national obligation to keep chickens and other birds in cages comes into force again. This is what outgoing agriculture minister Piet Adema (Christian Union) writes: Tuesday in a letter to Parliament. The reason was the discovery of bird flu in care farms last week in Utrecht and North Holland, where the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) was forced to cull 180 chickens to prevent the spread of the virus.
According to Adema, it is the second outbreak in a short time. The increase in the number of infections in the European Union has also prompted the government to reinstate the shelter-in-place obligation “as a precaution”. The measure applies to all commercially kept birds. Risk birds that are not kept commercially, such as owners of hobby chickens, are subject to a shielding obligation. Animals should be protected by, for example, an aviary.
According to the ministry, the new outbreak fits into the “unpredictable pattern” of the course of the bird flu epidemic in recent years. The virus is said to still be circulating among wild birds, making it easy for poultry farms to become infected again. Last summer, the national shelter-in-place requirement, which had been in force since October last year, was lifted again. Those nine months were the longest consecutive period ever that poultry was not allowed outside in the Netherlands.