SEPRA News
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www.hencam.co.uk
At times it is difficult to find interesting news for this report and I now find lots of bits and pieces on the internet. This week’s edition is no different and the first news came from my daughter Valerie who sent me details of a new web site at www.hencam.co.uk and it really is worth a visit if only to show how the public can be conned, mainly because of our apparent love of animals, sometimes more than of humans ?
A 35-year-old man has set up the web site complete with a web camera showing three hens in a coop. His site has had 17,000 visits in the past 14 days. He has a free competition for a henhouse, he is selling ‘hen’ type articles and the local Press have been lapping him up. The Guardian, Yorkshire Post etc.
He has a constant camera on his three old hens and you can visit and view them going about their day
At the top of his site he asks for Contributions. Stating that 50p will feed a hen per day.
As you know a hen eats about 126gms per day and John Thornborrow quoted me a feed price, including a discount for Direct Debit payment, which gives this daily feed intake costing 1.72p per hen. Wonder what the remaining 48p is for ?
His feed cost of 50p per day equates to a feed price of £3,968.00 per tonne and you can compare that with what you are actually paying per tonne!
With a steady number of the public viewing and contributing I reckon he could make more profit from his website than SEPRA members ?
He has T Shirts and ‘hoodies’ on sale too and curiously they are priced in $? A link within his site takes you to places where you can celebrate hen and stag nights ! The mind boggles.
It shows that a web site of your own has the possibility to make profit. A site will cost £50 per year host costs and for someone to set it up from around £200.
You could have your very own Easter Web Site. Sell boiled decorated eggs. Its daft things like that which attract the paying public.
Get the public to sponsor a hen which you can have ringed “ Willie’s “ from Dunlop. ‘Willie’ from Dunlop would be willing, I am sure, to pay a yearly fee. You may have to allow him to visit his hen, but a fee of say £20.00 per year would leave a wee bit margin ?
Graham Cruickshank
Graham Cruickshank who retired as Editor of the Poultry World in February appears to be missing the fun and work connected to our Industry and I received the following from Graham this week.
Dennis. Just a wee note to let you know that retirement is working . That is to say I am back in the saddle with PR work and Consultancy. Is there no peace for the wicked! But seriously things are moving nicely and I am pleased to be able to offer my skills to companies with technical write ups and farm stories plus anything else they can think of all at a reasonable fee. There is no doubt Poultry World has left a big gap. Slowly but surely the gap is beginning to fill up.
Please pass on my best wishes to all those in Scotland who worked with me it was always great fun for me as a half Banfshire lad to cross the border.
Regards.
Graham Cruickshank 01733 341 522 Mobile 07939 204435
Baa, baa rainbow sheep
One problem which caught my eye this week concerned PC. Not personal computer but Political Correctness.
Most
of you will have seen the reports in the Press this week as why ‘black’ sheep
are barred and ‘Humpty’ can’t be cracked. There was last week a report of a
shopkeeper receiving a visit from the local police because he displayed a
‘Golliwog’ in his shop window. A nursery school has been teaching the kids to
sing Baa Baa rainbow sheep! This nursery rhyme written in 1744 has fallen
foul of Political Correctness
My concern is regarding the use of the words black ! Just sit and think that we shall have to rename Black Rocks, Black Leghorns and maybe even the Brown Leghorns ?
All these new hybrid ‘nigger brown feathered’ layers might be better re-named also? Either that or breeders could change the colours of our layers to colours which will be PC? I have given you some suggested coloured layers, and it could be an idea to promote a School Competition on the re-naming of the new breeds which are in use today ? Any suggestions ? Ones I can print in here !
Animal Welfare
In discussing animal welfare terrorist activities a Professor, who is a neurosurgeon, said “ that part of the problem is that British society more than any other I have encountered, sees animals in almost humanistic terms. People here (UK) ascribe human emotions to animals that they don’t have. “
This could be a part of the European attitude towards using animals intensively to produce foods ?
Bird Flu………………again!
At the Stakeholder AI meeting last week it was agreed that the Industry, meaning everyone that is touched by poultry, should try to persuade the media to calm the manner in which they report flu findings and to stop guessing and printing facts which can not be authenticated.
As a follow-up and confirmation of the Scottish Executives concern is seen in this letter from Sheila Voas a SEERAD Veterinary Adviser Public Health, and I quote.
“I
would like to emphasise that the Scottish Executive do not condone the
irresponsible journalism which is evident in some sections of the media. We
have repeatedly given the information that we do not currently have Avian
Influenza in the UK, that it is a disease of birds which on rare occasions
can affect humans, that very close contact with sick birds is required to
transmit the disease and that eating properly cooked poultry meat and eggs
is safe. I totally agree that it would be preferable that this message was
relayed by the media, however it is not a story which they are keen to put
on the front pages.“ .
It is essential that we try to give the public the truth about AI.
I mentioned in last week’s Report that I had written to SEERAD about the importation of French day old pheasant chicks and eggs. On the 3rd March the EU Commission issued a Statement advising importers of Poultry and Game into the UK. There is now much stricter documentary procedures in order to limit the risk of the spread of AI from France, and other EU countries, to UK.
While bringing up the subject of Press coverage of the suspect problem of A I, watch the Channel Four programme on Monday 13th evening at 8.00pm. I am told it could be horrendous? More here.
Public’s fears !
A village residents association is using fears over bird flu as a reason to protest against planning permission for a new free-range unit in Buckinghamshire.
Kinsale Agriculture, a family-run poultry firm supplying eggs to Sainsbury’s, Tesco, and Marks & Spencer supermarkets, wants to build three chicken houses, each to hold 6,000 birds, which would graze outside on adjacent 15-acre plots. Planning permission has not yet been formally granted but met with council approval in September. However the village residents' association has queried the authority's indication to allow the chicken farm, which is near to housing, given concerns over avian flu.
A spokesperson for Kinsale Agriculture said that the fears were a result of scaremongering.
There is no evidence of a risk to human health from poultry farms. This fear of AI has been by the media, and has been seen in other countries all through media hype.
The confirmation yesterday of two new cases of bird flu in cats on the German Baltic Sea Island of Ruegen provoked fresh concerns from animal welfare societies.
Hundreds of cats have been abandoned in France and Germany over the past two weeks. "A lot of owners pretend they have suddenly developed an allergy to cat fur," a worker at the French Society for the Protection of Animals said.
The British Medical Journal, The Lancet, is reputed to have printed the following. ” The lack of sustained human-to-human transmission suggests that this HN51 avian virus does not currently have the capacity to cause a human pandemic. “
We, or the public, still have a pandemic of fear, and some of the Press comments have not allayed their fears.
Did you know??
- The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
- On a Canadian two-dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament Building is an American flag.
- All of the clocks in the movie Pulp Fiction are stuck on 4:20.
- No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
- "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
- Almonds are members of the peach family.
- Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
- Maine is the only state in USA whose name is just one syllable.
- Marilyn Monroe had six toes on one foot.
- If you keep a Goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white.
- Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
- Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do.
- This week’s egg drop is not the largest ever recorded.
Dennis Surgenor
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