Chickens die from mysterious plague

Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post/Yogyakarta

Farmers in Yogyakarta's Sleman regency have complained over the weekend that thousands of their chicken have died due to an unidentified disease in the past few days.

Apart from inflicting millions of rupiah in losses on farmers in the region, the outbreak of the mysterious viral disease, has discouraged them from breeding.

The farmers, which are still baffled by the outbreak, said that the disease killed chickens at a rapid pace. "The first outbreak occurred five days ago. The chickens looked fine in the morning, but later in the afternoon, they had died. The outbreak is so severe that most chickens in our village have died," Anto, one of farmer in Pakem, Sleman told The Jakarta Post.

He said that the most immediate symptoms of the illness were that the chickens salivated and died in hours. "Fluid also comes out of the chickens' anus. It was like people suffering from diarrhea," Anto said.

An official with Hargobinagun subdistrict office Kisno said that the mysterious disease had cast a specter over five villages in Pakem district, Candibinangun, Harjobinagun, Pakembinangun, Purwobinagun and Hargobinangun.

"In Hargobinangun alone there are over a 1,000 households that breed chickens. Each has at least 15 chickens," he said, adding that the 30 chickens he bred had also died.

Kisno said that the outbreak of the mysterious disease had added to the farmers' woes who had yet to recover from the bird flu scare.

"Bird flu had killed most of the farmers' chickens. And the new disease appeared right when the farmers started the poultry business all over again," he said.

Kisno said that the recent outbreak had discouraged farmers. "People here are still traumatized by bird flu," he said.

Contacted separately, head of the poultry division of Sleman agriculture agency Suwadi Azis said that his office had not received any reports from poultry farmers on the disease outbreak. "We haven't received any reports from the farmers, therefore we can't theorize about what caused the disease," he said.

However, Suwadi said that the symptoms might indicate Newcastle Disease.

"If that is the disease, we already have the vaccine to prevent the further spread of the disease," he said.

However, he said that the distribution of the vaccine would be difficult, as the chickens were bred by individual households, Suwadi said.

"We will need good coordination before embarking on the vaccination drive," he said.