Daijiworld News Network - Udupi / Malpe
Udupi, Mar 6: What could be the cost of 1,000 birds used in feeding the eager lot at the chicken festival on the Malpe beach on Sunday?
Compared to the possible losses that would have been caused on account of the bird-flu scare reports, it would certainly be chicken-feed!
The DK Poultry Farmers' Coop Society, in association with the animal husbandry department and the National Egg Coordination Committee, offered free chicken and egg preparations to the crowds, just to demonstrate that the bird-flu fear was not real and that it was absolutely safe to eat chicken.
About 2,500 kgs of fowl meat from 1,000 birds and 6,000 eggs were used in the preparations distributed free to the gathering, said Mahesh Udupa, National Egg Coordination Committee's Mangalore zone president.
State animal husbandry minister Dr V S Acharya said the state had a trade turnover of Rs 1,300 crore a year from poultry farming and chicken and eggs from the state had high demand in Japan. He said that only a few birds in a small village in Maharashtra and none else had been hit by the avian influenza - popularly called the bird-flu. The related virus would not affect human beings and it would not survive in high temperatures. Yet, the government had taken strict precautions against the menace, he added.
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