I'm not joining in the general hysteria about bird flu, but seeing as I understand the papers are stating today that people in Europe are to be given guidance on carefully cooking poultry to escape possible contamination from bird flu, where does this leave us people who have dogs on BARF?  Any views anyone?

I would say... in exactly the same position as we was in last week.
Has anybody found that bird flu transmits to dogs yet?

Hi janeandkai - well last week, I was feeling OK about this as I understood you couldn't get bird flu by eating contaminated birds - now I'm not so confident as far as my dog eating raw chicken is concerned if they are saying it needs careful cooking to be safe!

FWIW this advice would ONLY come into play IF and only IF bird flu was amongst our domestic poultry population, which it is not, yet.....

My view is that I will continue to feed raw poultry and eggs as, if  bird flu was diagnosed, the affected flocks would be destroyed and not enter the food chain in any case.

Thanks tohme, sensible view.

Just a thought though tohme, a lot of the chicken on sale in the UK doesn't come from the domest poultry population and it is often very difficult to know where it does come from.  Apparently they can show the UK flag on stuff that is purely packed here.

True, however I would suggest that it is, in general, in that country's interest to ensure that their poultry does not get into the food chain either as, if it did, they would see a ban on the export of their meat, a bit like the current F & M situation in South America.

Of course it is always possible that infected poultry that showed sub clinical symptoms could enter the food chain but heyho, nothing in life is without risk..........

We buy chicken to cook and mix in with our dogs complete feed. I must admit I am very doubtful now about whether to buy it or not.  I dont think its worth the risk.

On a different level - no turkey at Christmas. Just wont be the same!

Koda

There is certainly no need to stop the turkey at christmas! It is unlikley to catch bird flu from a live bird, to catch it from an 'oven ready' one is I believe unheard of. The panic is because they believe that the virus will EVENTUALLY mutate so that it can be transmitted from human to human. They have yet to have firm evidence of this, although it may well happen in the next few years.

There is still no bird flu in the UK and this is all about putting plans in place to take action quickly SHOULD it happen. In that even all our flocks of wild and domestic birds will be at risk. But not Humans of Dogs!

Please dont get this out of proportion and make our poultry farmers suffer more than they have to.

I will admit, I am getting so bored of all of these 'food scares' I take no notice what so ever anymore, and so am fairly oblivious to this bird flu, however I was listening to the radio a couple of weeks ago (was peeling potatoes so had no choice but to listen to it :rolleyes: ) anyway, they had a lady on who was saying that the chances of bird flu actually killing the 50 odd thousand in the UK that the Government have warned are very very small. She said bird flu in humans is pretty much the same as getting your avrage flu bug in the winter, and that the Government are more worried about what it will do to the economy than how it will actually effect people, and have therefore started a minor panic so that the people of this country are more aware, and those that can, will do their absolutely best to see that we have as few a cases as possible.

We, as a nation, have a flu 'epedemic' nealy every year, sadly people do loose their lives and I am not belittling that at all, but she was basically saying you have the same risk of dying from bird flu, as you would a 'normal' flu bug, in fact less in a way as the bird flu can not be passed from human to human, so there shouldn't be as many people with bird flu as there will be with a flu bug.

It was only a local radio station, so I don't know how true her comments were, but from the very little notice I have taken of this new scare, I certainly won't be giving up my Christmas Turkey, and until I hear something that makes me worried, Jed will carry on getting his frozen chicken piece a day.

Very true! I recently read that, in a 'good' year, 'only' 12,000 or so people in the UK die from flu. Every five years or so there'll be a blip and about 25,000 die.

I'm getting p**d off too

My dogs get organic free range chicken & all the other meat is organic & free range as well including the pigs. My puppy loves his pigs trotters & I will go on feeding the dogs the same way

It doesn't affect me(the eating chicken etc)as I don't eat meat or dairy products or eggs, but if I did I would continue to eat from the same source as my dogs food

A far worse danger to people's health is too much sugar, fat & salt in diets which does(not might)lead to health problems & not enough freshly prepared vegetables & food in general. If only people read food labels(I have to being a diabetic)a lot would be surprised

What you say is absolutly true Natalie. The thing that is worrying the authorities is that they believe at some point the virus will work out how to be passed from human to human and bird flu is very contagious amongst birds, so they think it will spread through the human population very fast.

There are a couple of problems with this from the governments point of view:
1. It will take 12 - 18 months to produce a vacine for it.
2. If it is that contagious it will effect all industries including key workers and allthough it may not be fatal to the majority of the population it will put large numbers of people 'out of action' for at least a couple of weeks (you know the test for flu is when you wouldnt get out of bed to pick up a £20 note!).
3. It will make very large numbers of the frail and elderly VERY ill, they will need hospital treatment (expensive) and sadly many will die.

So yes economic factors are very much a concern.

Organic chicken for the dog? What a spoilt pooch, which I could afford it for myself. I would think free range chickens more likely to get it than battery. The poor birds never see the light of day never mind mix with any other bird life.

Hhaha!

I think your vision of battery farmed poultry is a bit skewed.

Free range, even organic free range is not brilliant, and non organic free range means chickens just live in a HUGE barn with popholes to access a field outside, or a pen... though if its raining that doesnt need to be opened.

Most free range chickens still never see the outdoors since to get there they'd have to climb over several THOUSAND other chickens. And how often is it NOT raining in this country??

Battery farmed chickens live in tiny pens, in big barns. Big barns where pigeons frequently sneak in to roost (you try keeping pigeons out of ANYWHERE with shelter and food!), they are not in optimum health, live n poorly ventilated barns and i would think should a pigeon with birdflu fly in, the whole BARN would be down with it in days.

Im still failing to see however, that birdflu is going to pass from dead chickens that are frozen and then fed to our dogs, or frozen and then cooked and fed to ourselves!

Em

We have a free range chicken farm up the hill from us, and I must admit I was surprised at how far these birds roam - I've found them exploring fields a quarter of a mile from their farm, and driving up the lane to buy eggs is hazardous as they run around your wheels!

We have some as well around the corner, we quite often wake up with chickens either in our road or in the garden, the odd peacock even makes it down here :D

We've had our neighbour's chicks roost in the porch. Another hen legged it across the horses' field and set up home under a bush in our garden, laying eggs for us until the fox got her (we had returned her to our neighbour but she escaped and took up residence in the garden again) :(

Daisy

Personally I think the solution is to implement a "no fly zone" over your flocks etc and install anti bird guns etc, that will cure the problem.......................

Considering that I am a newcomer to raw feeding. I intend to keep it going.  I have labradors and one dog imperticular suffers from anal gland problems and  finding that raw diet is helping  the problem. So hopefully less visits to the vet.
But I have to agree that  if bird flu is detected  in a  area , then hopefully  the whole lot of infected animals will be slaughtered.