Half of the UK’s free-range turkeys and geese have died or been culled.
The typical roast bird that graces dinner tables in the UK on December 25 is under threat from a bird flu epidemic that has hit free-range poultry farms across the UK.
The British Poultry Council, BPC, has estimated that around 600,000 of the usual 1.2 million free-range turkeys and geese bred for the Christmas dinner table have been affected by the disease which has hit Britain hard in the past year. The total UK production of turkeys is around 9 million for Christmas, with just over a million of those having been culled or having died of bird flu.
The news could also hit the cost of Christmas dinner, with BPC chief executive Richard Griffiths admitting that it was a “question for retailers” and “we don’t know how the gaps within retail are going to be filled”.
More than a third of poultry farms have been affected by some forms of controls designed to curb avian flu, whether they have been directly affected by the disease or not.
