On Tuesday, a precautionary restricted place notice was put on the farm, stopping the movement of material on and off the property, after some of its estimated 6000 birds died.
The move came following the detection of the highly pathogenic H7N6 strain of bird flu was confirmed at a Mainland Poultry farm at Hillgrove, near Moeraki, last weekend.
In a statement this morning, Biosecurity New Zealand deputy director-general Stuart Anderson said testing and monitoring continued to show no signs yet of disease on five chicken farms operated by Mainland Poultry and linked to its Hillgrove site in North Otago.
“We’ve tested a number of samples from the Dunedin farm and if HPAI (bird flu) was present we would have expected to see it in most of them, but we haven’t found any.
“The results will be welcome news for the farmer and we would like to acknowledge their efforts in reporting the deaths and working with our staff.
“At this stage, we believe the issues on the farm are caused by an existing New Zealand disease among the birds and we will work with the farm to identify what it is and provide support.”
Precautionary biosecurity controls would remain in place for now while more testing was carried out to determine the cause of illness, he said.
At Hillgrove, a cull of about 80,000 birds in two of its four sheds is under way and the farm remained under strict controls.
Mr Anderson said to date, there had been no signs of production loss or ill birds at Mainland Poultry's five other properties in the area.
“The Ministry for Primary Industries’ enhanced PC3 laboratory at Wallaceville in Wellington continues to steadily work through hundreds of samples at a time and it’s good news that we’ve not found any other infection yet.
“We’ve moved quickly in the past week to put in restrictions, investigate, track, and test, and I thank the farmers involved and our industry partners for their help - together we’ve made strong progress.”
Biosecurity New Zealand would continue its rigorous testing of samples due to the disease’s incubation period, which is usually three to 14 days, but can be up to 21 days.
“Steady progress is being made to depopulate chickens in two sheds at the Hillgrove egg farm and dispose of them safely at a secure landfill designed for such purposes.”
Mr Anderson said teams were also visiting properties within Biosecurity New Zealand’s 10km enhanced surveillance zone around Hillgrove, with support from the regional control centre set up to help response efforts.
“Our staff are visiting landowners that own poultry, including commercial and back yard, to provide helpful information on best biosecurity practices, signs of HPAI to look out for, and how to report these to MPI’s pest and disease hotline."
“We remain confident that we are on the right track to stamping out H7N6.”
He reminded people the risk to human health remained low, and there were no concerns for food safety or wildlife.
"Avian influenza viruses are killed by cooking, so it remains safe to eat thoroughly cooked egg and poultry products.
"Raw eggs have always been considered a high-risk food. Our advice remains not to consume or serve raw eggs, especially to those with low or compromised immune systems, as the eggs may contain harmful pathogens.”
Exports of some products to resume
New Zealand has reached agreement with Australia to restart the export of some chicken products.
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay revealed the breakthrough when addressing a select committee this morning during Parliament's scrutiny week, RNZ reported today.
New Zealand's $200 million poultry exports were put on hold after the H7N6 virus was detected at the Mainland Poultry farm.
Trade officials have been working on resuming trade as quickly as possible - and Mr McClay said they have come to an agreement with Australia.
He said Australia, like New Zealand, was taking a risk-based approach.
- APL
