THE National Farmers' Union has released a statement after a bird flu outbreak at Eastwood Farm near Banbury last night.
Vets have been ordered to slaughter 25,000 chickens and a control zone has been set up around the farm between Shenington and Shutford.
Farmers within the 10km zone have been ordered to keep their birds housed in isolation.
NFU group secretary Mike Wynn said: "We have been on this family run farm for more than 50 years and started this free range poultry unit more than five years ago and recently had just built this up to a flock of 25,000 laying birds.
"Having seen an increase in mortality within the flock we alerted our vet to this problem and after careful monitoring of the situation informed Defra of our concerns. Defra vets attended the farm and having carried out various tests yesterday confirmed the presence of Avian Influenza strain H7."
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