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Astral doing 'all in its power' to contain bird flu

28 Jun 2017

Poultry company Astral has created a "war room" to contain the outbreak of bird flu on its farm in Villiers. "Following on from the initial outbreak, abnormal mortality was reported on another site on the same farm over the past weekend, and in light of the risk posed by this disease to Astral's operations and the greater poultry industry, a decision was taken to depopulate all laying sites on this farm," Astral MD for agriculture Gary Arnold said in a statement on Tuesday.

Astral doing 'all in its power' to contain bird flu

"This decision affected close to 150,000 broiler breeders representing approximately 6% of Astral's total breeding stock," Arnold said.
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"Immediate actions were put in place to replace the lost hatching egg production from this farm by extending the production of all other breeding capacity and tapping into hatching egg stocks."

He said the company was doing everything in its power to contain the outbreak. Once the infected sites have been depopulated and disinfected and the quarantine status lifted, the farm will be restocked and returned to normal production.

Astral CEO Chris Schutte said that if further breeding operations were affected, the company had limited surplus capacity it could use. "We would also draw on our contingency planning to the full extent which incorporates our international poultry breeding partner, and the sourcing of hatching eggs and/or poultry livestock to ensure uninterrupted supply within Astral's poultry value chain," he said.

The company's share price dropped by 6% to R148 a share on Wednesday after the outbreak was reported in the media. The price has since recovered slightly and the stock was trading at about R150 on Tuesday afternoon.

The outbreak on Astral's farm was the first of two that have been confirmed.

Avian influenza H5N8 outbreak confirmed in SA

23 Jun 2017

Namibia and Zimbabwe have both halted imports of South African poultry.

Source: BDpro

Source: I-Net Bridge

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