Christmas turkey shortage as HALF of all free-range birds dead or culled from bird flu

Christmas dinner is at risk as half of free range turkeys have been hit by bird flu, it has been warned.

Poultry farmers said many families will miss out this year because of a “big, big shortage” as whole flocks are wiped out in the worst ever outbreak.

Industry bosses revealed that 600,000 of the 1.2million free range birds due to be sold this Christmas have already died or been culled because of the disease.

Around one million of the 8.5 to 9million total supply of turkeys for Christmas have been affected.

At a Commons hearing, Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the British Poultry Council, said the problem was “huge”.

“This year is the worst bird flu outbreak that we’ve seen,” he told MPs. “Around 1.6 million birds have been culled because of bird flu on farms.

“So it’s huge and the ongoing costs for industry and food production are potentially enormous.”

Paul Kelly, who runs Kelly Turkeys in Colchester, Essex, said the spread of the outbreak was “devastating”.

The poultry farmer, who is nicknamed the “King of Turkeys”, warned: “There will be a big, big shortage of British free range turkeys on the shelves this year.”

He added: “We have one farm with 9,500 [turkeys]. The first infection was on Thursday evening and by Monday lunchtime they were all dead.”

Mr Kelly warned that supplies could be hit again next year as many farmers will be afraid of losing their flocks again.

“We’re a small business and we’ve lost £1.2million this year, just turkeys that have died,” he said. “Luckily we’re going to get through to next year but…can we take the risk to grow Christmas poultry based on what we’ve seen this year? We couldn’t.

“And had I known what I know now we would not have grown the turkeys we did. Looking to next year, I don’t want to put the farm at risk.

“Without a vaccine in place or a compensation scheme that is fit for purpose, I don’t know whether we’d have the confidence to grow Christmas poultry next year.”

Mr Griffiths added: “This year the seasonal producers have been so badly affected. I can see many of those taking a good hard look at whether they want to be in Christmas poultry.”