Eggs (Image: Getty)
Fears H5 bird flu could wipe out entire flocks has prompted the poultry industry to bolster protections for farms.
Poultry farmers are scrambling to increase biosecurity measures amid fears a single infection could spell the end for thousands of birds and see egg prices spike across the country.
While there have so far been no reports of the deadly avian flu infecting any birds in Australian commercial poultry farms, the first mass mortality event was confirmed Down Under on Monday with the deaths of dozens of wild greater crested terns, found on an island in South Australia.
The event follows testing of samples from dead and sick birds detected by aerial surveillance on an island called Baudin Rocks, about three miles south of Cape Jaffa in South Australia, last week.
As of 8am local time August 5, Australia has 101 confirmed detections of H5 bird flu. All have so far been found in wild birds.
10 in Western Australia (WA), 81 in South Australia (SA), 2 in New South Wales (NSW), 1 in Queensland (QLD), 7 in Victoria (VIC).
Australia’s Federal Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said the mass mortality was expected.
“Sadly, we do know that once the H5 bird flu is spreading in wildlife and the natural environment, it is not possible to avoid significant losses, which is what we’re starting to see now,” she said, as per the ABC.
There was no evidence of the bird flu in poultry or Australia’s agricultural systems, she said, adding the risk to human health also remains low.
“We have invested and worked really closely with our agriculture, particularly our poultry sector, in terms of improved and increasing biosecurity to do everything we can do to keep it out of our agriculture system,” Collins said.
“But you do tend to see spillover impacts across the globe when it comes to the H5.”
Some egg producers have poured millions of dollars into new biosecurity measures as a result of the seemingly unavoidable crossover into commercial poultry farms.
Chickens on a free range farm (Image: Getty)
Others say they simply cannot afford to do the same. Victorian poultry producer Bradley McAuliffe told 9News that his farm was essentially shut down overnight in 2024 when the H7 bird flu wiped out about two million birds across the country.
“We lost in excess of 600,000 birds in a matter of 14 days,” McAuliffe said.
“In the last three years we have invested tens of millions of dollars in biosecurity, not only as a business but industry as well.
“H5 is going to land on one of our commercial farms. If it’s not ours, it will be one of our neighbours. And, if it’s not one of our neighbours, it will be interstate.”
He revealed he has recently shifted packing and grading off the farm, and has added tighter surveillance inside his bird enclosures to stave off the H5 infection for as long as possible. He said: “At any one time we are considering everyone and anyone a threat.”
In Australia’s sunshine state of Queensland, in the north, ethical and sustainable producer 9Dorf Farms has revealed it’s grappling to come up with ways to isolate its free-range birds from wild ones when they cannot simply just close the doors to their farms.
“We have pasture-raised poultry… it would not be feasible or viable for us to take them inside,” Bronwyn Neuendorf said.
“We just don’t have the facilities here.”
Egg Cartons Displayed On Supermarket Shelf (Image: Getty)
So, as an alternative, their free-range farm is using electric netting, a guard dog, and quarantine-level precautions. They also hope the warmer climate may provide less favourable to H5 virus when compared with Australia’s cooler southern states.
“The best sanitation is the sun,” Neuendorf added.
As per the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), free-range egg producers who opt to keep their hens inside due to the bird flu outbreak may continue to label their eggs as free-range under existing regulations.
Orders to keep hens housed indoors due to the outbreak are so far voluntary.
If state governments opt to mandate housing orders, the ACCC will not take enforcement action for 90 days, which will allow producers time to source alternative labelling as well as information for consumers stating the eggs have now been sourced from housed hens.
Big Michael’s Fruit & Market Eggs distributor Peter Marinos supplies millions of eggs to the hospitality sector. He says the bird flu outbreak making its way into commercial farms is just a matter of time.
He warned that one commercial infection could see the price of a carton of eggs double. “It’s really a ticking time bomb to know when it’s going to happen,” Marinos said, adding: “It’s going to be extreme price rises.”