Residential home owners warned against rearing poultry in backyards

SIBU: Sibu Rural District Council has warned house owners in residential areas that rearing poultry in their backyard is strictly not allowed.

“For the council, the general policy is quite clear that rearing chicken is definitely not allowed as it contravenes the Cleanliness By Law and unhygienic to the surrounding environment,” SRDC chairman Sempurai Petrus Ngelai told The Borneo Post yesterday.

He, however, said if a resident was keeping the chicken in the cage for a few days before slaughter for own consumption especially during festivals or important occasions, the council could give them exemption.

In asserting the council’s stand on the issue, he said poultry rearing would emit foul smell besides health issues that might arise from diseases related to chicken like bird flu and H5N1.

On the action against house owners if they were found doing backyard poultry rearing, he added: “Currently, we will send notice to those who rear chicken and any other poultry.”

The council’s Standing Committee for Public Health would decide when they would start taking stern action, he added.

“For the time being I remind all those rearing poultry at their backyard to stop the activity,” Sempurai said.

Separately, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Agro-based Datuk Seri Tajuddin Abdul Rahman reportedly said that no cases of H5N1 bird influenza outbreak had been reported in the country.

Tajuddin said that the monitoring operations were still being actively carried out by the Veterinary Services Department (JPV) in efforts to curb any outbreak.