HPAI and the Predator Tax

#Ten million birds

In the two avian influenza events that ran through 2023, South Africa lost 10.067 million birds: 1.751 million from H5N1 and 8.316 million from H7N6. Over 5.23 million were laying birds, which is why Gauteng retailers ran out of eggs (SAPA Industry Profile 2023). The breeding stock went too — 357 700 broiler parents in rear and 2.8 million in lay culled, with fertilised eggs imported before Christmas. Affected producers, in SAPA's words, "had to cope without assistance from Government."

That is why biosecurity comes before pasture. You have settled a lawful route to market and designed a range birds will use. Neither survives the week the state vet arrives.

South African specifics

The two 2023 events were not the same disease problem.

H5N1 began on 18 April 2023 in the Western Cape and produced 29 poultry outbreaks across six provinces — the familiar pattern, where wild birds introduce it and farm-to-farm spread is limited.

H7N6 was South Africa's own. "On 1 June 2023 the first case of H7N6 was reported on a laying farm in Mpumalanga" — a strain that adapted locally from wild-bird virus and became the largest avian influenza outbreak in South Africa to date: 116 outbreaks across eight provinces, the majority in Gauteng.

SAPA's account of how it moved is worth reading twice: "It proved very difficult to control using conventional biosecurity approaches. In contrast to HPAI H5 … H7N6 appeared to spread between flocks by direct transmission. The wind, feathers, and movement of staff and vehicles were thought to be responsible."

Wind and feathers. Against that, a fence is decoration. The event closed with WOAH on 1 September 2025.

The current event has not spared the small keeper. H5N1 was first PCR-positive in a commercial flock in Mpumalanga on 25 June 2025, and eleven poultry outbreaks followed — six of them in the Western Cape — of which five were still unresolved at 31 March 2026. Among wild birds and backyard poultry, detections reached 42 events, including seven in backyard chickens and two in backyard domestic geese (DALRRD, 31 March 2026). Backyard flocks appear in the official record by name. This is not only a commercial-sector disease, and being small does not put you below its radar.

#The legal position, in one rule

The legal position

Avian influenza is a controlled disease under the Animal Diseases Act 35 of 1984. DALRRD states that "avian influenza of any subtype is a controlled animal disease in terms of the Animal Diseases Act, 1984 (Act No 35 of 1984)" and that any suspect or confirmed case of any subtype must be reported immediately to the responsible state veterinarian (DALRRD, 31 March 2026).

There is an apparent conflict. The gazetted list of controlled diseases of 30 October 2023 names "Notifiable avian influenza", narrower in WOAH usage than "any subtype". DALRRD's operational report resolves it: "All LPAI strains however are still controlled animal diseases in terms of the Animal Diseases Act, 1984." The safe rule: any avian influenza, any subtype, report it. You are never penalised for reporting.

The same list makes Newcastle disease, psittacosis and three Salmonella serovars controlled too — which matters directly to anyone selling eggs.

Learn the trigger signs, because the duty attaches to suspicion, not diagnosis: sudden unexplained mortality, a sharp drop in lay with many soft-shelled eggs, swollen heads or blue combs, nervous signs. Stop moving anything off the property and phone the state veterinarian or an animal health technician the same day. Under the Animal Diseases Act 35 of 1984 that is a duty, not a judgement call.

What follows is not gentle: immediate quarantine, no movement of birds, eggs or products, and culling with disposal by hazardous landfill, incineration, rendering, composting or approved burial. DALRRD imposes no radius protection zone — wild birds are the main introduction route — but linked and neighbouring properties are quarantined.

Careful — this one bites

Vaccination is not a route open to you, and compensation is not settled.

On 5 June 2025 the Minister of Agriculture announced a coordinated H5 roll-out. Read the conditions: permit-controlled; covering day-old chicks destined for breeder operations and layer farms producing table eggs; broilers raised for meat excluded by design; and producers required to keep separate unvaccinated flocks for export (USDA FAS GAIN SF2025-0026). As at that September 2025 report, no vaccinations had occurred — producers found the regulations too costly. The first permit went to Astral on 30 June 2025, covering one farm with 200 000 broiler-breeder hens (SAnews). Whether vaccination has begun since could not be confirmed.

Compensation: historically none. In June 2024 the Western Cape High Court rejected the government's zero-compensation policy after a producer challenged the Department over 2021 losses. The Department has appealed. Until it resolves, budget for total, uncompensated loss of the flock. Any specific vaccine or protocol is a veterinary and permit decision — from your state vet and the label, never from a course.

Contested — here is both sides

Stamp-out or vaccinate?

For stamp-out, current SA policy: it preserves trade status, stops virus circulating silently under vaccinal immunity, and is what WOAH-aligned trading partners expect.

For vaccination: ten million birds and a national egg shortage is a food-security event, not a private loss — but separate unvaccinated export flocks and the exclusion of broilers made compliance uneconomic for all but the largest producer.

The uncomfortable middle: with no compensation, stamp-out creates the incentive an industry panel named openly — farmers hiding infected birds rather than face ruin, which is worse for national biosecurity than either policy (Agribook). Both arguments are strong; this is an unresolved policy failure, not a question with a winner.

#The predator tax, and the number that does not exist

Start with the honest statement, because this is where most poultry writing invents a figure. No South African measurement of pastured-poultry predation loss by species exists — no study quantifying what raptors, mongoose, genets, caracal, monitor lizards, snakes or domestic dogs take from an SA pastured flock could be found. Practitioner reports are abundant; measured rates are not. So no percentage appears in this lesson — distrust any course that gives you one.

What can be taught is the diagnostic signature, because that is how you work out what is taking birds.

Predator	When	Signature
Raptors (black sparrowhawk, African harrier-hawk, eagles, buzzards)	Daylight, open range	Bird taken cleanly, few feathers, often at a plucking post. Losses stop when overhead cover goes up.
Mongoose (slender, yellow, water)	Daylight to dusk	Multiple birds killed, often more than eaten. Eggs taken. Enters through small gaps.
Genet	Night	The classic surplus killer — many dead in one night, heads and necks eaten, bodies left. Climbs extremely well; a roof is not optional.
Caracal	Night	Larger birds taken away entirely; clears a flock over successive nights. Needs fencing, not netting.
Monitor lizard (Varanus spp.)	Warm daylight	Eggs and chicks taken from nests; adult birds rarely. A river-adjacent problem.
Snakes	Warm months, day and night	Eggs and young chicks disappear with no carcass and no feathers.
Domestic dogs	Any time	The most destructive. Birds killed and scattered, not eaten; fences torn rather than dug. Usually a neighbour's dog — a relationship problem first.

Read that as a design brief, not a bestiary. Genet and caracal work at night, so the overnight house earns its money. Raptors work in daylight and stop being a problem under cover — the cover you built for shade in the last lesson. Monitor lizards and snakes take eggs and chicks, which is a nest-box problem, not a fence problem. And a dog kill looks nothing like a wild-predator kill, which matters because the legal response is entirely different.

The legal position

Before you shoot, trap or poison anything, work this out.

Raptors and most indigenous predators are protected under the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act 10 of 2004 and provincial conservation legislation. You may not shoot, trap or poison a raptor taking your chickens.

"Problem animal" is a legal category, not a description of behaviour. In Gauteng, s56(1) of the Nature Conservation Ordinance 12 of 1983 deems the animals in Schedule 8 problem animals, and that schedule is a closed list of five: chacma baboon, vervet monkey, black-backed jackal, caracal and bush pig (Ordinance text). Genet, mongoose, monitor lizard, every raptor and somebody's dog are not on it.

That status decides what you may do. Under s27 proviso (iii) a problem animal may be hunted or caught with a trap, gin, pitfall, set gun or a dog without a permit — so caracal, the one bird-killer on the Gauteng list, sits in a different legal position from the genet raiding the same house on the same night. For everything off the list, that proviso gives you nothing. Every province has its own ordinance and its own schedule — find yours, and check the current consolidation: s56(2) lets the Schedule be amended by provincial notice, and whether it has been amended since 1983 could not be confirmed.

Poison is never the answer taught here. Ordinance s31 makes poisoning game a permit matter, but the harder constraint sits above it: under the Fertilizers, Farm Feeds, Agricultural Remedies and Stock Remedies Act 36 of 1947 an agricultural remedy may only be used in accordance with its registered label. No SA product registered for baiting a predator could be traced — and the precise offence-creating section of Act 36 could not be confirmed either, so treat this as an exposure to check with the Act 36 Registrar at DALRRD rather than a settled citation. Off-label baiting is an offence risk under Act 36 of 1947 in addition to cruelty under the Animals Protection Act 71 of 1962 — and it is indiscriminate: vultures, livestock guardian dogs and the neighbour's dogs die with the target.

A domestic dog is somebody's property; shooting one raises Animals Protection Act 71 of 1962 and civil-liability questions that shooting a jackal does not. Phone the owner and the SAPS, not the rifle.

If lethal control seems unavoidable, that is a permit question for your provincial conservation authority, applied for before you act. The damage-causing-animal pathway could not be confirmed for Gauteng — ask the department.

The regenerative answer and the legal answer are the same answer: exclusion and husbandry, not killing.

Do this on the farm

Predator protection, in the order that pays.

A lockable, fully enclosed overnight house. Worth more than everything else combined, because most losses are nocturnal or at dawn. Genets climb; it needs a roof, not just walls.
Overhead cover on the day range. The SAPA Code of Practice 2022 requires "provision must be made for outside cover to reduce stress reactions" where overhead predators occur — the only citable SA standard, and the same structure as your December shade.
Buried or skirted fence line against diggers, plus fencing the Code calls "adequate to provide protection from indigenous terrestrial predators", with dogs and cats kept out of the range.
Electrified poultry netting kept at voltage. A dead fence is a fence-shaped illusion.
Geese or guinea fowl as alarm animals, and a dog that guards rather than hunts. Helmeted guineafowl is indigenous: keeping or trading it may need a permit under NEMBA 10 of 2004, and the Gauteng position could not be confirmed. Ask first.
Dawn and dusk presence — when the predators and the farmer are both awake.
Record every loss — date, likely cause, photograph. No SA loss rate exists, so your own register is the only figure that will ever describe your farm, and against a neighbour's dog it is evidence rather than argument.

#What to do on Monday

Two things, both cheap. Write the state vet's and the animal health technician's numbers inside the feed-shed door, where a panicking person will find them, and settle now what puts a phone in a hand. Then open the loss register. With no measured predation figures and no compensation for disease, the only reliable data about your farm is what you write down.

#Check yourself

3 questions — answers explained as you go

1You find three hens dead in the run at dawn, heads and necks eaten, bodies left untouched, no birds missing. Which predator, and what should you build?
Why: Read three things together: the timing, what was eaten, and what was removed. Genets kill in surplus at night, eat heads and necks and leave the bodies — and they climb, so walls without a roof do nothing. Caracal take larger birds away entirely; raptors work in daylight and leave few feathers; dogs scatter and destroy without eating. The diagnosis is what stops you spending money on the wrong structure.
2A pair of black sparrowhawks is taking birds off your range in daylight. What are your lawful options?
Why: Raptors are protected, so killing, trapping or poisoning one is never a farmer's own decision — and in Gauteng no raptor appears on the Ordinance 12 of 1983 Schedule 8 list of five species, so the problem-animal provisos give you nothing here. Poison fails twice over: an agricultural remedy may only be used in accordance with its registered label under Act 36 of 1947, and no SA product registered for baiting a predator could be traced — and poison kills vultures and guard dogs with the target. The practical answer is also the legal one: overhead cover, which the SAPA Code already requires and which doubles as shade.
3Your neighbour's flock has been confirmed with HPAI and culled. What should you expect at your place, and what compensation is available?
Why: DALRRD does not impose a fixed-radius protection zone, because wild birds are the main introduction route — but neighbouring and epidemiologically linked properties are quarantined. Compensation has historically been none; the Western Cape High Court rejected that policy in June 2024 over 2021 losses and the Department has appealed, so nothing is settled. Vaccination is permit-controlled and excludes broilers by design. Plan on carrying the whole loss yourself.