A poultry farm in Kyoto Prefecture planned to ship all of its chickens to a processor Feb. 23, even though birds had been dying there in large numbers for three days, an official at the processing firm said Monday.
Hideki Arinobe, senior managing director of Arinobe, based in neighboring Hyogo Prefecture, said Monday that Hideaki Asada, president of Asada Nosan Co., which operates the Funai farm, asked the processor to purchase all 200,000 chickens at the farm.
About 133,000 chickens have died of bird flu at the Funai farm in the town of Tanba since chickens there started dying en masse Feb. 20. Asada Nosan is based in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture.