“We have said that between 10 million and eight million chickens have died, but I can assure you the death rate is much higher than that,” Nadhim Abdullah, head of the Sulaimani and Garmiyan Poultry Farmers Association, told Rudaw’s Horvan Rafaat on Monday
“We have more than 3,000 poultry houses in the Kurdistan Region and if 5,000 chickens die in each house, the death rate would be 15 million,” he added.
Shops selling live chickens claim that they have borne the brunt of the phenomenon, citing a significant decrease in the number of their customers as prices have climbed from 2,000 to 3,000 dinars per kilogram, an amount that low-income families find it difficult to afford.
Just like Sulaimani, Erbil has also experienced a large number of chicken deaths.
The Erbil Poultry Farmers Association says that the primary cause for the widespread chicken deaths is the presence of multiple unchecked commercial vaccines and the lack of coordinated vaccination efforts by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
"In most developed countries, the government controls vaccine distribution, not companies and traders. If the government brings them, we know where they are imported from and it is trustworthy. We do not want the government to give us the vaccines for free, we want to pay for them using our money,” said Haidar Farhan, head of the association.
It is unclear when the price of live chickens will drop, but all eyes are on the KRG to resolve the vaccine problem.
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