bird flu hits bernard mathews turkeys...what do you think?

recovering_spendaholic

Fivenations wrote:

Anyone buying ready chicken meals or frozen chicken from Iceland, chinese restaurant or takeaway food will have been eating meat imported from the Far East for years. So dont fret.

I don't know about anyone else, but I have looked at the country of origin of all chicken when I am buying it for ages now. Quite often when you see BOGOFs on chicken breast fillets (which is the only sort of chicken I buy that is not a whole bird IYSWIM) they are from Thailand or some other foreign country and I therefore don't buy them. The more I see and read about animal rearing condiitions I am more and more tempted to become a vegetarian, because I cannot afford to pay the very expensive prices for organic meat. I know people say buy a little of the good stuff and eat less of it, but I love meat and so do my kids and I know that buying half a pound of chops for £10+ is barely going to do 1 meal. What I have been doing is buying the Willow Farm chickens from Tesco and I buy the outdoor reared pork, but I don't know how ethical they are..... We only have one butcher near to me and his meat is nice but he doesn't sell free range chicken and his other meat is not organic. I am going to go and dig out my Rose Elliot and Ursula Ferrigno books and see what I can make! I have flirted with vegetarianism over the years but have always gone back to meat....

Snow_Angel

recovering_spendaholic wrote:

I don't know about anyone else, but I have looked at the country of origin of all chicken when I am buying it for ages now. Quite often when you see BOGOFs on chicken breast fillets (which is the only sort of chicken I buy that is not a whole bird IYSWIM) they are from Thailand or some other foreign country and I therefore don't buy them. The more I see and read about animal rearing condiitions I am more and more tempted to become a vegetarian, because I cannot afford to pay the very expensive prices for organic meat. I know people say buy a little of the good stuff and eat less of it, but I love meat and so do my kids and I know that buying half a pound of chops for £10+ is barely going to do 1 meal. What I have been doing is buying the Willow Farm chickens from Tesco and I buy the outdoor reared pork, but I don't know how ethical they are..... We only have one butcher near to me and his meat is nice but he doesn't sell free range chicken and his other meat is not organic. I am going to go and dig out my Rose Elliot and Ursula Ferrigno books and see what I can make! I have flirted with vegetarianism over the years but have always gone back to meat....

I've been a vegetarian for 6 years. I too can't afford organic, free-range meat at the moment as I'm a student. When I qualify and start work, my starting wage is going to be more than enough for me to afford organic, free-range produce....but I honestly don't think I'll change back. Not eating meat makes me feel much healthier and energetic as I'm very careful about getting a balanced diet. I eat a lot of Quorn, tofu and pulses and a lot of green veg - I always get at least 5 a day! I must admit I do eat fish but I'm careful about where it comes from and I often buy it direct from the fisherman at the harbour near where I live. And when I see stories like this on the news, despite the fact that people are saying 'don't panic', why would I choose to take the risk when I can happily live without it?

vizcacha

Justie wrote:

the most likely contamination is from a worker not observing all the hygiene rules and walking in something on their boots - otherwise the bio-defences are very good in these units - although the whole outfit is not pleasant for the birds. Bird flu is very contagious amongst birds and once it gets into a unit then it's going to spread very quickly as shown here - the irony is that the other 158,000 birds were probably uninfected and perfectly healthy.

This is the most likely time of year for us to get infected birds because of the migration so it's likely to all die down again very quickly.

On the up side though it might be the end of turkey twizzlers

the poor things have such compromised immune systems which have weakened by being so stuffed full of antibiotics (to prevent constant infections) and other drugs and by living in such horrendous conditions (in darkness packed together with no room to move) that they would have little defence against it spreading really quickly once it got to one bird.

Flippin Bernard Matthews got what he deserved for animal abuse.

I know the turkeys suffered but at least they have been put out of their misery a bit more quickly than they would have been.

He obviously has no compassion - so he has been hit where it hurts him - in his wallet

COOLTRIKERCHICK

heard on the new this morning that japan has now put a ban on all british poultry entering japan....

i think the likes of hugh henry whittingstall and jimmie's farm will get more orders....

astonsmummy

lol, i just bought 2 packs of frozen turkey sausages coz they were 50p a bag, wonder if i'll die :rolleyes:

Justie

vizcacha wrote:

the poor things have such compromised immune systems which have weakened by being so stuffed full of antibiotics (to prevent constant infections) and other drugs and by living in such horrendous conditions (in darkness packed together with no room to move) that they would have little defence against it spreading really quickly once it got to one bird.

Flippin Bernard Matthews got what he deserved for animal abuse.

I know the turkeys suffered but at least they have been put out of their misery a bit more quickly than they would have been.

He obviously has no compassion - so he has been hit where it hurts him - in his wallet

I'm afraid he'll be well insured and he'll get compensation from the government for the birds being destroyed so he won't be out of pocket that much... if more people learn about intensive farming though and alter their buying habits accordingly then that's a good thing but I've yet to see news footage of a turkey shed other than from the outside...

there is a certain irony that the first big outbreak is in an industrial unit rather than the predicted hobby keeper or outdoor reared birds...

COOLTRIKERCHICK

i should imagine its like people.. who are indoors and in close contact with people... virus.... coughs ..and cold.... etc .... spread quite quickly....

and people that are more hardened.. outside all weathers.... hardly takes antibiotics..... not suffer so much with virus type illness...

since my hubby has worked outside in all weathers..... he has hardly had a cold..... where as when we had the shop.. and indoors most of the working day.... he allways used to pick up what ever was doing the rounds.....

i feel when i had all my chickens and ducks... and outside roaming the only fear that i had was the dreaded fox....:eek:

HopeElizzy

I work at a Veterinary Surgery and the main thing I'm worried about is the farmers and the vets. I'm sorry so many birds have had to be destroyed but I worked through the Foot & Mouth last time and came away from work sobbing so many times. Our vets were worked to the point that one of them collapsed - they were having to go out to so many farms just so farmers could move animals from one field to another. I had farmers on the phone in tears as they weren't allowed to move their animals and they had lambs and calves dying in the fields because they couldn't bring them inside because of restrictions.

Reading through DEFRA's procedures for Avain Influenza they look much the same as the Foot & Mouth so I'm dreading this getting worse.

Wannabesaver_4

I too feel sorry for the farmers and all the media attention will only serve to panic consumers into not buying turkey or poultry. I think i am right in saying that there is no risk to eating a bird with the flu virus as its an airbourne one. Therefore you will only be at high risk of contracting it if you work on a poultry farm or within close proximity of the birds.

I hope people keep a realistic view of the situation or many UK poultry farmers are going to lose thier livelyhoods!

Addiscomber

Justie wrote:

there is a certain irony that the first big outbreak is in an industrial unit rather than the predicted hobby keeper or outdoor reared birds...

Absolutely. This isn't farming as it should be done, but unnatural in the same way that caging birds up in a space the size of an A4 sheet of paper to get eggs cheaper is unnatural, and feeding animal byproducts to herbivores was unnatural. The only difference is that dairy farmers might not have known what was actually in the cattle cake that they bought, but these poultry and egg concerns can see what they are doing to the birds. I don't know how they sleep at night. Even a £300 million fortune (Bernard Matthews supposed worth) wouldn't ease my conscience.
The BBC was on again this morning about hobby farmers being a risk. People with only a few birds love them as individuals and care for them well. I doubt a hobby farmer or pet owner has ever played baseball with a live bird :mad: