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Re: [RC] Bird flu joke? - Maryanne Gabbani

Hopefully the American experience will be better than the Egyptian but I'm not sure I'd want to count on it knowing how the press really loves winding the public up. At BF arrival plus a week here, it's really hard to find fresh chicken in the grocery stores. You can find frozen chicken (and why would this be ok and not fresh? Probably because the company in question runs automated slaughterhouses and packing plants so there is less worry about human contact but also less humans to know if something is wrong with a bird. Does freezing kill a virus...somehow I doubt it.)

The police went house to house in the city demanding that all birds be destroyed. Not all chickens or ducks, all birds. If you owned a pet bird and it lived outside, it was toast. I know one woman who lost a lot of very loved pet birds. They've done that to a certain extent here in the farming area and someone came to my home because he'd heard that I own birds while I was out. My housekeeper, standing in a pack of 10 dogs including a Dalmation, a Great Dane and a shepherd mix, informed him that since Madame wasn't home she couldn't let him in. A friend arranged that he will not be returning. I have 6 parrots ranging in age from 12 to 20 years old who live in an aviary with 3 chickens. The chickens are ultimately disposable, but the parrots are not. None of them are in any danger because there is no traffic with any other birds than house sparrows and to the best of my knowledge they don't carry BF.

Many of the farmers have slaughtered their poultry and eaten them rather than have the army or police confiscate them...and eat them. How these families will live without the protein from the eggs and poultry, I don't know. Everyone here talks about when the flu "goes away" but I haven't seen anything to indicate that it will go away. At some point they will want more poultry.

There were reports that dead chickens had been dumped into the Nile early on and people panicked, stocking up on bottled water and food. The virus doesn't survive in water so there was no danger to the drinking water other than the usual one we have in the cities where the pipes are all old and cracked and there is cross contamination from sewage and drinking water, so you don't want to drink it anyway. It's chlorinated up the wazoo as well to overcome the contamination issues, so it tastes nasty.

Between bureaucracy and idiocy and journalists, you're in for a rocky ride. Just watch people netting off barns or shooting the dangerous swallows or.....the mind simply boggles at the nonsense that happens when The Deadly Bird Flu arrives in your neighbourhood. But other than that I haven't noticed any changes. No dead birds, my horses are fine and I ride all over as usual without problems.

Maryanne
in Bird Flu Land

On Mar 11, 2006, at 2:16 PM, Marv Walker wrote:

I realize that the bird flu post was a joke but as one
who has seen some things in my time, I wonder...

When the bird flu gets here, and it will, how will it
affect your life and activities?  What will it do to
the sport and the keeping of animals or for that matter
life in general?

We already have the NAIS knee jerk reaction to BF and
terrorism to contend with.  Am I the only one concerned
about widespread stupidity and how it will affect me?

Marv "Excuse me while I go bleach down the yard." Walker
Horse Info & Training Videos ~ http://MarvWalker.com


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Replies
[RC] lein on a horse ?, Mom Alexander
[RC] Bird flu joke?, Marv Walker