Letter - Animal Health Law and Orders (Jersey) Amendment Order 2025 - Response - 17 February 2026
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Government of Jersey
Union Street | St Helier | Jersey | JE2 3DN
Deputy Hilary Jeune
Chair, Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Panel
BY EMAIL
17 February 2026
Animal Health Law and Orders (Jersey) Amendment Order 2025 Dear Chair,
Thank you for your letter, dated 9th February 2026, regarding the Animal Health Law and Orders (Jersey) Amendment Order 2025. Please find the relevant areas addressed below.
Clarification whether the requirements as set out in the letter, in practice, apply to keepers of a small number of birds, and whether you consider this proportionate to the level of risk posed by avian flu.
The requirement for mandatory registration of poultry keepers was implemented to improve disease control, communication, and the protection of both animal and public health. Registration helps us quickly identify where birds are kept and to act fast if an outbreak occurs. Better communication also helps prevent disease from spreading to other flocks or wildlife.
By knowing where and how many birds are kept, we can:
• target surveillance efficiently,
• control disease avoiding spread of disease
• lift restriction zones more quickly after outbreaks.
Small, hobby flocks play a significant role in disease transmission, and outbreaks in small flocks result in the same activities and procedures for disease control as outbreaks in large commercial farms.
The requirements to contain and control, surveillance, international notification, tracings, zone implementation and movement restrictions are the same whether the flock is 1 chicken or hundreds.
Historically, in Jersey, the highly pathogenic avian influenza cases have occurred in small backyard flocks.
As per the requirement to keep records, this is basically a record of chickens purchased (or given), sold or deceased, it is unlikely a small keeper will have a significant number of movements. It is not a requirement to update the registration anytime that a chicken is deceased. The requirement to update the registration within 1-month refers to changes in the details of the keeper such as address, where animals are kept, contact number.
Regarding the penalty – this is set up on the on the law itself (Animal Health (Jersey) Law 2016) on Article 29. The Offence applies to all orders.
The consequences of an outbreak in a small flock are substantially equivalent to an outbreak of a large flock triggering the same control measures.
Yours sincerely
Deputy Steve Luce
Minister for the Environment