🕊️ Keeping Our Birds Safe: Avian Influenza Update

Putting Our Birds’ Safety First

At Brockswood, the wellbeing of our residents is always our top priority - and that includes our feathered friends.

With Avian Influenza (bird flu) currently spreading fast across the country, and now a confirmed case recently reported in Worcestershire, we’ve introduced some additional safety measures to protect our birds. You might notice a few small changes around the sanctuary, such as disinfectant foot dips near our bird habitats and our geese spending some time indoors. Don’t worry - they’re all safe, healthy, and getting lots of extra care and enrichment from our team.

What We’re Doing

To reduce risk and follow Government guidance, we’ve:

• Introduced foot dips at key points for disinfecting footwear.

• Temporarily housed our geese indoors, away from wild bird contact.

• Stepped up our biosecurity routines to make sure every area stays clean and safe.

These are precautionary measures only - nothing is wrong with our birds. They’re simply spending more time inside to stay protected while cases in the region are monitored.

Why These Steps Matter

Avian influenza is a highly contagious disease that affects both wild and captive birds. Sadly, another wonderful sanctuary, Happy Pants, recently had to say goodbye to all of their birds after a confirmed case - a heartbreaking reminder of what’s at stake.

We can’t even imagine going through something like that here. That’s why we’re being extra careful, acting early, and taking every step possible to keep our flock safe.

What This Means for Visitors

Your visit won’t be affected at this time - our doors remain open, and most of our residents are still out and about as usual.

You may just notice:

• Foot dips at certain points for our care team

• Some birds, like our geese, spending more time indoors

These small precautions make a big difference. Thank you for helping us protect every feathered life in our care.

Staying Updated

We’ll continue to monitor government updates and keep you informed if anything changes.

In the meantime, your continued understanding and support mean the world to us - especially during times like this, when we’re reminded how connected all our residents are to the wider natural world.

Read the latest DEFRA guidance ➜

Fact Friday: Rabbit Poo!

It might seem like a taboo subject, but when you care for animals, poo is a really important issue to be aware of! Just a small change in an animal’s poo can be an early indication of digestive disruption and a decline in health, so it is vital to understand what is normal and what is not so that we can act fast.

Rabbits are animals commonly kept as pets but frequently misunderstood, often sold as easy to care for and good for children as a “starter” pet, but you probably couldn’t get further from the truth. These wonderful animals are in fact a very complex species, and a huge part of this is their amazing digestive system!

Did you know that rabbits eat their poo? This might sound unpleasant to us, but this is a crucial step in the digestive process for our long-eared friends!

Wild rabbits are foraging herbivores, with a diet consisting mainly of grasses and weeds, which is why it is so important that you ensure that the majority of your pet rabbit’s diet is made up of high-quality hay and grasses rather than simply commercial pellets. However, this high-fibre, cellulose-rich diet certainly isn’t easy to digest, and by the time this has made its way through their intestines it still contains many of the nutrients they require.

Rabbits (and their cousins, the hare) beat this problem with a special kind of digestion known as hindgut fermentation. Rabbits eat their poo and digest it a second time to obtain the nutrients they missed out on the first time around! Those of you with rabbits may have noticed they make two different kinds of droppings: the small, dark, round ones they are most famous for which contain the waste indigestible fibre, and softer black ones known as caecotrophs – you may not have seen these, as these are the ones that are eaten straight away. This process is known as coprophagy and functions the same as our sheep and goats chewing their cud.

It is so very important for a rabbit’s digestive system to keep moving. If anything becomes stuck in a rabbit’s oesophagus or intestines, this is a veterinary emergency as they can enter something we call GI (Gastrointestinal) Stasis which causes a rabbit’s digestive system to slow down, creating a build-up of bacteria which results in gas. In minor cases, this is uncomfortable for your rabbit and if treated quickly, it can be resolved. However, in more serious cases, it can become excruciating and lead to a critical condition.

Rabbits are also incapable of vomiting. In a nutshell, if your rabbit stops eating, call your vet – you could save their life. And don’t be alarmed if you witness coprophagy, it’s completely normal, it’s not a dirty habit; it’s simply a happy, healthy bunny.

Avian Influenza - Update

As many of you will no doubt read in the local news today, Avian Influenza (bird flu) has made its way to our local area, following sadly deceased birds being found at the nearby Himley Hall and other areas across the borough. This is something that we have been dreading here for years.

It seems that for the past few years we have stated that it has been “the worst year ever” for bird flu, and now we are experiencing an even worse year, with (at the time of writing) 161 reported cases detected in poultry/captive birds, and 1,727 cases in the UK’s wild bird population, in 406 locations, involving 59 bird species. The virus seems to be persisting year-round now, spreading more easily among bird populations than before.

This is an immense worry to us, as if the disease reaches our sanctuary, this could lead to culls of our rescued birds. Something we simply cannot risk!

We are once again increasing our biosecurity measures to keep our bird residents safe; with new case alerts reaching us almost daily, and now the UK declared an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone, we are asking for your cooperation in this. This vigilance will not only help to protect our animals, but your pet birds, and our much-loved wildlife as well.

Our team are using disinfectant foot dips to decrease the risk of the virus being carried in on footwear and we will ask that you also use one of our foot dips/mats to further help us during your visit as well.

Unfortunately, as we cannot ask dogs to dip their delicate paws in disinfectant, we will have to temporarily stop them from visiting the animals. We pride ourselves on being a 100% Dog-Friendly organisation and this is not a decision we have taken lightly, but we simply cannot risk the lives of our birds. Your dogs will still be very welcome to use our Dog Run as this is well away from our bird residents. We’re hoping to be able to welcome them back to the rest of the sanctuary as soon as we can.

We have started to pop together a dedicated page on our website with further information about what we are doing which we will update as things progress. If you have any questions that we haven’t covered, please do ask us and we will be happy to answer them! https://www.brockswood.org.uk/avianflu

We thank you for your continued support and cooperation at this worrying time.

For the latest up-to-date information about Bird Flu and what you need to do if you keep birds yourself, please see the Government website here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/avian-influenza-bird-flu

Weekly findings of Avian Influenza in wild birds in Great Britain are published by the Government here: https://www.gov.uk/.../publ.../avian-influenza-in-wild-birds