As a farmer in Berbice continues to calculate his losses over the death of over 800 chickens, a team from the
Some of the dead birds in the pen
Agriculture Ministry has employed measures to investigate the matter.
Permanent Secretary (PS) of the Agriculture Ministry, George Jervis on Wednesday told Guyana Times that personnel from the Ministry will soon visit the farm and assess the situation.
“What we will do is visit the farm, go and take blood samples and see what we can do about it,” the PS noted.
Jervis further explained that officials of the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA) are already investigating the report.
“The Guyana Livestock Development Authority is on board; it is being looked at,” he told this publication.
On Wednesday, this newspaper was told that the farmer again lost more birds and now remains with a mere 70 chickens.
Even as the poultry farmer seeks to determine the cause of the mystery illness that continues to kill his birds, the Permanent Secretary from the Agriculture Ministry is denying knowledge the farmer was told of the unavailability of equipment to conduct tests on samples of the dead birds.
Jervis told Guyana Times that the allegations are untrue as no official complaint was made to the Ministry. He expressed that he, neither his staff, saw any person lodge any grievances.
On Wednesday, the poultry farmer’s plight came to light after this publication reported of a possible poultry illness outbreak in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).
The death of the over 800 chickens prompted Regional Chairman David Armogan to request that the Agriculture Ministry investigate the mysterious illness.
Previously, reports had surfaced of a similar occurrence where a farmer at Linden in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) claimed that 300 birds had died from a mysterious disease at his Linden farm.
The Berbice farmer had explained that his birds started dying on June 19 when he discovered that more than 200 had passed overnight.
According to the farmer, the Ministry was supposedly contacted and extension officers were said to have visited the farm and took samples from some of the dead birds.
The farmer also stated that his brother went to the Agriculture Ministry to seek assistance for his plight. However, officials were reportedly unavailable. The allegation of the Permanent Secretary saying that the Ministry did not have the equipment to do the requisite testing was strongly denied.
