Chicken Dung Used to Feed Fish May Help Spread Bird FluBird flu may be spread by using chicken dung as food in fish farms, a practice now routine in Asia, according to the world's leading bird conservation organisation.
Fertilizing fish ponds with poultry feces, which can dramatically improve fish growth, may set up major new reservoirs of avian influenza infection if the chickens providing the manure are infected themselves, according to BirdLife International, the Cambridge-based umbrella body for bird protection groups in 100 countries. --The Independent,online edition, March 12, 2006.
Feces as Fertilizer and Livestock Feed
Alarming and needing closer investigation, is the widespread practice of using poultry manure (chicken, duck and other poultry feces) in agriculture and aquaculture as fertilizer, in untreated form as food for pigs and fish. Birds infected with viruses excrete virus particles in their feces: putting untreated feces from infected birds into fisih ponds and on to fields provides a potential new source of infection. Although recognized as early as 1988, the risks of this practice for sprading influenza viruses remain little investigated.
Studies show that Russian fish farms have started using chicken feces as fertilizer and this practice is followed in Eastern Europe where poultry feces are also spread onto agricultural land and discharge inevitably runs off into waterways. Where untreated poultry manure is collected, transported and sold, this could be a highly effective way of spreading the bird flu virus. ...It was recently revealed that feces-derived fertilizer used in Serbia in winter 2006 had originated from China. --adapted from BirdLife International, Feb. 28, 2006.
Suzanne
[This message has been edited by Suzanne Sutton (edited 03-12-2006).]