Visitors approaching the entrance to Yeonsan Ogye Black Chicken Farm in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province, are normally greeted by a particular sight: hundreds of chickens, clad in black, roaming freely about the yard. Since November, however, this is no longer the case. The start of winter in South Korea last year marked the spread of a particularly potent variety of avian influenza (AI). Farms where the virulent H5N6 strain was detected were forced to cull their entire populations, usually numbering in the tens of thousands. Nationwide, the total figure reached 33 million by mid-February. Factory farms were worst affected, while small-scale poultry producers using sustainable methods were largely spared.
