Britain suffered an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 in a Bernard Matthew’s turkey farm so those in Britain would logically be at least somewhat more aware of the threats of H5N1 showing up in domestic poultry, or at least that is my assumption. That assumption is why I was more than a little surprised when I read this artlicle from the UK’s Daily Mail:
1,000 poultry sheds sold every week as urban families take to The Coop Life
By MARTIN DELGADO
Last updated at 1:32 AM on 31st August 2008As well as the hand-crafted poultry accommodation costing several hundred pounds, imported self-assembly kits are available for as little as £90.
Manufacturers are cashing in on the trend by offering ranges with names such as The Swiss Chalet, The Penthouse and York Cottage.
And nationwide, an estimated 1,000 chicken sheds are sold each week - around 30 per cent up on last year - as town and city dwellers with a taste for free-range eggs spend up to £900 on hand-made ‘designer’ coops for their newly acquired birds.
Poultry firms say their customer order books are full of addresses in the London commuter belt and in towns from Penzance to Aberdeen.
Thousands of city dwellers are rearing chickens at home - thanks to celebrity chefs who have highlighted the plight of battery-farmed hens and championed locally grown food.
In an echo of the popular Seventies sitcom The Good Life, urban families across Britain are turning over their back gardens to hen coops.
Sales have rocketed since Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s campaigning TV series were broadcast last year.
Domestic chickens have become so popular in Axminster, the Devon town where Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage local produce store is based, that residents have complained of being woken by cocks crowing early in the morning.
Fads can often endanger one’s health and physical safety, and this fad may be one such danger. As someone who has “issues” about the safety of the food I eat I sympathize with wanting to have safe and wholesome food to feed the family. However, in the case of backyard poultry an assumption of “safe and wholesome” may not be the reality, and I find neophytes indulging in the latest fad driven by one or another celebrity disturbing.
SZ
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Katie 09.03.08 at 10:46 am
Hi there,
I just found you linked from someone else’s blog and I am really interested in your writing. You seem like me in being a bit all over, but mainly on the pandemic track. Also a woman! Woo!
My blog is more looking at disease and its representations in film and literature, but as such I have to be interested in real pandemic also.
I think we could have a lot to add to each others blogs. I am definitely going to continue to read yours, and I hope you will come by and see mine!
http://contagiousnarrative.wordpress.com/
Hope to talk to you soon!
–Katie
SophiaZoe 09.04.08 at 12:02 am
Katie,
Hey there! Always happy to meet a fellow female blogger. You said:
Yes, I’m a bit “all over” of late, avian influenza news has taken a bit of a break which has afforded me opportunities to think about other issues. That is over and above the very real threat the hurricanes are presenting at this time. Besides, as it says in my “about” page… I pretty much have an opinion on just about everything under the sun
I look forward to reading your offerings! As a bit of a bibliophile “disease in literature” would be something I would find highly interesting.
SZ