ASF: Culling at industrial pig farm in Bulgaria’s Rousse continues
Culling of pigs at an industrial farm in Golyamo Vranovo in Bulgaria’s Rousse district, where an outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) was confirmed in late July, is continuing, reports on August 28 said.
The industrial pig farm had 30 000 pigs before the outbreak of ASF was confirmed, and now 17 000 remain to be culled.
The management of the farm told Bulgarian National Television that while they were complying with the order to cull, they believe that they should be given exemption under a European Directive, to not to have to kill pigs with no signs of the disease.
Farm manager Dr Milenka Dimitrova told BNT: “We are killing healthy animals while the disease is not spreading as it has at other pig farms”.
Dimitrova said that fair compensation for their losses should be calculated on the basis of their turnover in the past three years.
She called for the farm to be granted the minimum quarantine period, no more than two months, to enable production to resume as soon as possible.
In Bulgaria, according to figures submitted to the World Organization for Animal Health by the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency, by August 16 a total of 126 169 pigs had been lost because of ASF. This number represents deaths from the disease and culling.
In all, going by official figures, there have been 33 confirmed outbreaks of ASF in Bulgaria.
