FEARS that the deadly strain of bird flu had reached Britain were allayed last night after a flock of hens in Orkney tested negative for the virus.
Poultry owners John and Gillian McNally were quarantined in their home yesterday after 100 of their 400-strong flock died inexplicably earlier this week.
On Wednesday, they returned to their smallholding on Orkney from a seven-week holiday in Australia to find government vets carrying out tests on the surviving birds in Scotland's first suspected case.
However, the Scottish Executive confirmed last night that preliminary tests had not detected any sign of avian flu in the dead birds, although movement restrictions on and off the farm will be restricted until next week, when final confirmation is expected.
Mr McNally said last night: "Obviously we are pleased that it is not bird flu, but I still want to find out what they died from. The government vets haven't told us anything.
"There are still a lot of questions to be answered when you lose 100 hens. I thought it might have been hen cholera because we have had it before, but typically you might lose half a dozen or so, not 100.
"I haven't been here for quite a while. I can't blame the chap who was looking after them. I wasn't here to see the symptoms.
"I was pretty sure it wasn't avian flu because we don't get any birds landing on our farm. We don't even get the greylag geese. It's just as well it isn't bird flu because that would hardly help the tourist season."
Mr McNally, 63, said a friend looking after the hens notified authorities after finding a large number of the birds had died.
Earlier, police were keeping people well away from the isolated three-acre smallholding, Bon Accord, on the brow of a hill in open countryside five miles north of Stromness.
Warning signs were placed around 100 yards away from the couple's cottage and officers within the cordon shouted at onlookers to keep away.
The H5N1 strain, which scientists fear could cause a pandemic if it mutates into a virus that can infect humans, has been confirmed in Greece, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Germany, Slovenia, France, and Slovakia. A laboratory in Germany reported two weeks ago its presence was confirmed in a cat, the first time the country identified it in a mammal.
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