WITH any luck and no occurrence of any avian flu outbreak in our area, we can let the hens and guinea fowl out of their huts to roam around the farmyard next week.

John did net one of the runs over and the birds in there have started laying again. Before that, zilch. Mega sulks.

The birds still line up against the wire fence netting in their enclosure and gaze mournfully at the paddock, but I have told them they are lucky not to be chicken soup, or worse, like fellow poultry in many of the commercial units hit by avian flu.

It made me reflect on the swift response taken to diseases in the farming industry.

BSE in cows, for one. And scrapie in sheep for another. When the last major BSE episode was rife nearly 20, yes, 20 years ago, we went into virtual fortress mode with signs at the locked gates.

It came very close to our farm and there were rumours that Defra officials had booked rooms at all the local B&Bs as they anticipated the outbreak moving into our area. Fortunately, the outbreak fizzled out before we were threatened.

Over the years we have had a few sheep with scrapie. John brought the vet in when he saw that these individual ewes were not thriving, losing their fleeces at a time when they shouldn’t and were very unsteady on their feet. All were humanely dispatched and incinerated. Roast lamb eh? Not for eating I think.

But back to my hens, I was able to find some packets of citric acid powder that I had bought off the internet at the time of the BSE threat, and create shallow baths to wash my footwear before I went into the hen huts.

Don’t know whether it has done any good as I have also laced the baths with bleach. I do have very clean Wellington boots, though.

The wording on the guidance from Defra is not crystal clear, I suppose they shroud themselves in mystery and ambiguity to cover all scenarios, but common sense seems the best way forward.

Let the hens out, but make sure their poultry feed is not accessible to wild birds. We can do that. And the good news is that the hens who did have access to a run covered by netting, are laying like fun.

Spring must be on the way at last. And I can stop grumbling about shovelling grain into birds who have hardly produced a single egg for months. In order to lay, hens need access to a minimum length of sunlight in the day, and they were not getting that. Guidance was to install electric lights, but John considered that a luxury too far.

So most of our hens will be coming out into the light at last. Blinking maybe, but at last able to have a good scrat and dust bath. And please, lay some eggs.