Bird flu wipes out half of free-range stock... threatening festive feast for ... trends now
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Fears are growing of ‘big, big shortages’ of turkeys at Christmas amid the bird flu crisis.
The stark warning from industry chiefs came as it emerged half of free-range birds had been wiped out or culled because of the disease.
Describing it as ‘the worst bird-flu outbreak we have ever seen’, they told MPs that there is a real risk of gaps on shelves this festive season.
Some farmers, they said, had lost their entire flocks of thousands of turkeys, geese and ducks in just days.
Industry chiefs said the outbreak is the worst they had ever seen. Pictured: Dead Turkeys are loaded onto a JCB at Redgrave Park Farm, Suffolk, following an outbreak of Birdflu
Although supermarkets are expected to turn to imports from countries such as Poland, it is understood that the price of these has more than doubled.
Details of the crisis were laid bare at an inquiry by the Commons food and farming committee, Efra, which is investigating the impact of bird flu on farmers.
The Government recently ordered all poultry and captive birds in England to be kept indoors because of the disease.
Chief executive of the British Poultry Council, Richard Griffiths, told the committee: ‘This year is the worst bird flu outbreak that we have seen, ever.
‘The usual number of free-range turkeys for Christmas is about 1.2 million to 1.3 million. We have seen around 600,000 of those
