Victorian poultry farmers are dealing with the worst outbreak of avian influenza the state has ever seen, with concerns raised about the rapid rise of free-range farming.
All poultry in the Victoria's Golden Plains shire must be housed indoorsJulie Kos's free-range egg farm at Stonehaven, west of Melbourne, is around 20 kilometres from infected farms and her birds have been forced to stay inside for the last six weeks.
"They seem to be coping really well, like us humans with the coronavirus, you just need to get on with it." "That susceptibility coupled with the way modern farming has large numbers of birds in one spot or one shed means that it spreads very quickly." Julie Kos's chickens normally roam freely in her paddocks, but they've been locked inside for six weeks.The outbreak started at Lethbridge at the end of July and there are now six farms across the state infected with three different strains of the virus.
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