On Feb 1 and Jan 1, it was priced at Rs74 and Rs66 per kg, respectively. At the time of detection of two bird flu cases on Feb 6 in Rawalpindi in domesticat chicken and peacock, the poultry live bird was selling for Rs78 per kg and after two days, its price was slashed to Rs72 per kg. On Feb 9 also, another case was detected in a domestic flock of turkeys and peacock in Islamabad.

The retailers are now demanding Rs140-150 per kg for chicken meat, which is almost equal to beef (bachia with bones) prices.

Pakistan Poultry Association (Sindh) chairman Chaudhry Mohammad Sohail said that the demand for bird has gone up, but their was thin supply from the producing farms.

Many farmers, he said, are reluctant to put day-old chicks for production because of cold weather. A large number of other farmers have kept their production thin due to fear of bird flu. However, bird flu virus has hit domestic chicken and peacock in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

He said, so far, poultry chicken is safe from avian influenza as proper vaccination has been carried out.

He, however, did not agree that prices have been increased deliberately by farmers to a maximum extent so that when prices come down in case of any bird flu threat, the prices do not reach the worst point when they will be facing losses.

He said the industry cannot adopt this practice as it had already suffered loss to the tune of billions last year due to massive price fall.

Source: DAWN