Craigies Fife poultry farm prepares to cull 40,000 hens

Preparations have begun for the culling of 40,000 chickens at a Fife farm where there has been an outbreak of bird flu.

Officials have confirmed that it is a mild strain of the highly infectious H5N1 avian influenza and that all birds at Craigies Poultry Farm, in Dunfermline, will be killed to prevent its spread.

Poultry farmers and people who keep chickens in their gardens have been advised to look for signs of ill health in their birds.

Robert Hay, chairman of the Poultry Working Group at the National Farmers Union Scotland, told the BBC that the cause of the outbreak was unknown.