Confinement stresses chickens and infections threaten egg supplies

For the rest of the day the “doors were open” for “people to come and go as they pleased.” CAstillero and León are the two communities most affected by this measure Of the executive branch, one of its provinces, Valladolid, has the largest number of outbreaks in captive birds in the country: seven out of fourteen. In total, 2.2 million chickens were sacrificed in an area of ​​8.7 million chickens.

Bird flu has already caused damage in the United States – where cases of infection have been detected – and in some countries of the European Union. The rule is clear and stipulates that all poultry must remain closed until further notice, whether it is a poultry farm or a private barn for self-consumption. The aim of this country-wide restriction is to prevent these animals from coming into contact with wild birds currently migrating south, which could infect them if there is minimal proximity to them, or, for example, to their drinking holes. At this moment they are 14 outbreaks of bird flu were discovered in SpainThis is based on the accounts of the Ministry of Agriculture, which contributed to the slaughter of 2.5 million chickens. At this stage, experts stress that if a single infection appears on the farm, all samples must be eliminated.

This was clarified in a conversation with ABC conducted by Luis Uriga, Head of the Rural Environment Service of the Galician Government, who pointed out that within the Community Regulations there is a classification of diseases according to their importance and seriousness, which places bird flu at level A. Highly pathogenic disease “This requires eradication, not control,” the expert explains the strict measures that must be implemented.

The warning currently hanging over the poultry sector is not new – a multi-week lockdown was also triggered in 2022 – but it comes at a critical time for the consumer. The latest price updates do not give respite to families, who have been seeing for months how the cost of eggs and chicken meat, the main protein input in many homes, is rising dramatically without reaching the ceiling at the moment. With just over a month to go until the end of the year, eggs are the food with the most expensive prices in Spain over the past 12 months, with an increase of 22.5%. The cheapest dozen eggs, at this time, are around three euros. The immediate future is uncertain for the local economies of a country that last year consumed 143 eggs per person, or about 420 million kilograms.

When analyzing the reasons for this escalation, the sources consulted point directly to the effects of bird flu on the international market, but also highlight that it is a “trend” health food and that its consumption has increased significantly at the expense of other less accessible foods. For Rodrigo García, president of the Galician Poultry Association (Agap), the egg is on an upward trend and, coinciding with the arrival of the bird flock, “a perfect storm is born.” “Spain is an exporting country Exports are about 17% “At a time when almost three million chickens are disappearing, what we have to do is try to maintain this sale,” García says to highlight the increasing cost of this essential product.

“You have to make sure that nest egg stays here, and ultimately, in order for it to stay, you have to pay for it, because it has a lot of foreign markets. “This is the only formula to put eggs on supermarket shelves and in industries,” he asserts. At this stage, and in light of the state of anticipation that the sector is experiencing, the question is whether new price increases will be next. For Agriculture Secretary Luis Planas, the answer is no. After the quarantine was announced, the official issued a call for calm, separating the disease from the rise in prices, and recalling that Spain is the third European country with the least rise in prices after Cyprus and France.

The sector faces the coming weeks with uncertainty

Regarding the reasons that his ministry estimates regarding the rise in egg prices, the minister pointed to “geopolitical, climatic, and clear cost circumstances.” But the poultry sector faces the coming weeks with doubts. “If things remain as they are so far and there are no more cases, the price will certainly remain the same. But if more cases appear, we can no longer know,” Agap admits in a scenario that is subject to daily monitoring For now it will extend “indefinitely” in timealsountil the risk begins to decrease. When asked about the deadlines being dealt with, a Medio Rural spokesperson revealed that it is expected that, “taking into account that bird migration is still ongoing and that we are now heading towards increasingly low temperatures and the virus is likely to persist, the confinement could be extended for several weeks or even the next few months.”

While awaiting the easing of the rule, which may take some time to arrive, daily life on poultry farms takes place amid strong biosafety measures, which the union stresses precede the quarantine. “There are some controls that we have already implemented on large farms, with and without alert. To enter a facility, there must be security systems in place that include outfitting yourself with divers, wearing tight pants, or walking on foot baths with disinfectant products. “This is something that should always be done,” explains Rodrigo García. In line with this reality, the Federation of Farmers’ Unions specifies that X-rays of the sector confirm that there is only one case A small percentage of the bird population has contact with the outsideIt may not exceed 3%. And with regard to the demand for controls and quarantines, “the farms that contacted the outside have already taken action and quarantined their birds.”

The foresight and demand with which the poultry union acted can be explained by the serious economic damage they would suffer if one of their specimens became infected and the entire flock had to be sacrificed. The risk of losing entire farms affects the “fear” that all those consulted cite about the worst moments of bird threat.

Castilian and Leone poultry farmer José María fears that the most immediate consequence will be the “stress” on animals that are not used to confinement. “When I go to feed them, they all crowd around the door because they want to go out,” he says. This concern will be conveyed to A line followed by a “decrease in production”“The changes affect them,” he explains, convinced. So, of the 120 dozen she gets a day to supply small businesses, “we’ll have to see” what they end up with. In their case, the feed silos — conventional grain in the case of the chickens and organic in the other on the farm — have been hermetically sealed since 2018, as have the water tanks that go directly to the waterers in each building. There is no option to contact wildlife, so the new security measures do not mean any greater cost for him.

At the moment, José María does not expect the increase in egg prices to be affected by these measures, but he believes it might “if it lasts longer.” Furthermore, in your case, the shielding goes beyond the building itself. He has insurance in case he kills animals, although he admits that wouldn’t allow him to “start from scratch.” “We don’t know what will happen, but we have never had to take this action. nWith the Philomena storm, animals were trapped in this way“, talks about the impact of the measure that he considers “very strict” and its expansion. This farmer admits that the animals will probably get used to it, but he will regret continuing like this for a long time: “We created this to provide the eggs that we like to eat. Not so that the animals are confined. To talk about de-escalation, we still have to wait.