Free range eggs could soon disappear from supermarkets, as bird flu scare forces farmers to keep hens indoors
Following reports of bird flu cases in the UK, free range hens have been cooped up in barns
FREE range eggs could soon disappear from supermarket shelves, after an order from the government in December meant that all free range hens in the UK must be kept inside for 12 weeks.
Following reports of bird flu outbreaks on farms in the UK, hens have been housed indoors since December to prevent the disease from spreading.
But this means that, unless the hens are able to go back outside by February 28th - at the end of the 12-week order, farmers will be forced to label their eggs "barn produced" rather than free range.
Under EU rules, eggs from free range hens who are housed for up to 12 weeks can continue to be labelled as free range, but after this time their eggs must be downgraded to "barn-reared".
If the housing order is extended into March and the eggs are downgraded, farmers will see a huge decline in their profits, as free range eggs are more expensive than barn ones.
Free range eggs currently represent 56 per cent of retail egg sales, whereas just 2 per cent of eggs are from the barn, the British Egg Industry Council (BEIC) said.
It said that the risk of bird flu has been a major concern for poultry farmers, but it hopes that the risk of the disease spreading will reduce enough that free range hens can go back outside.
The BEIC said it was planning to put stickers on free range egg packs in supermarkets to "ensure transparency for consumers", but said that if free range eggs can't go back outside at the end of February, the free range sector would suffer.
Farmers in Holland recently lost an appeal against the EU to extend the 12-week rule, and they are now having to re-label free range eggs as being from barns.
Cases of the H5N8 bird flu virus were found on three poultry farms in Lincolnshire and in backyard flocks in Wales and North Yorkshire, as well as in a number of wild birds around the country and on a game farm in Lancashire.
Chief Veterinary Officer Nigel Gibbens said: "The Government has taken swift action to limit the spread of the disease, with restrictions around affected premises and wider measures in place across the country.
"To reduce the risk of bird flu spreading from bird to bird there is currently a legal requirement for all poultry keepers to keep their birds housed or otherwise separate from wild birds."
Public Health England advises that the threat to human health remains very low and the Food Standards Agency has said there is no food safety risk for UK consumers.
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