by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

In a few weeks, Jean-Jacques Etcheberrigaray will start repopulating the 2,000 ducks that he allows to quack free at his farm in St-Urbain, near Quebec City.

Four years ago, Etcheberrigaray was inspired by the tradition of his Basque forefathers when he created his “back to nature, organic duck farm.”

He reckons a little frolicking does a duck good. “The advantage is that you have a stronger bird. We never use cages. There’s nothing like the sun and earth and air for an animal. Unfortunately, this year we’re going to prevent them from seeing what nature gave us.”

Etcheberrigaray and all other farmers who raise feathered farm fare in Quebec will be forced to keep their birds inside at all times, due to provincial legislation that came down on Nov. 4 imposing confinement restrictions. The restrictions are hoped to curb the spread of the deadly bird flu, which has killed over 75 humans since 2003 and resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of millions of birds worldwide, by limiting exposure between wild fowl and raised fowl. The banning of free-range bird farm techniques is believed by Quebec farm authorities to be the first of its kind in Canada or the States.

Etcheberrigaray says he has no worries about raising his family amid free-roaming ducks. “We are conscious people,” he says. “If there is something, we’ll be the first ones to take some action, but right now I think it’s a bit premature to do that. I think they’re in panic mode here in Quebec.”

He suspects the law was inspired by an anti-free range agenda. “We have evidence of lobbying behind this by the [Quebec Federation of] Poultry Producers (FPVQ). Most are already growing the animals inside, so they don’t like farmers like us. That’s why they passed the law so quickly and suddenly. Now we’re all equal, and we can’t be labeled as organic.”

He’s down about exiling the beasts from the great outdoors. “We tried it and it’s a disaster, because ducks are always looking for water and if you put water inside, then you quickly get a humidity problem and it smells.”

The law will also apply to Quebec’s 800 chicken farms, hatcheries and chicken slaughterhouses which produce 160 million chickens a year. Quebecers eat 31 kilograms of chicken each per year, about the same amount it produces. Chickens are brought to slaughter aged 34 to 38 days, except for egg layers, which live longer.

The chicken-growing bureaucrats are okay with the law. “We have to be comfortable with this kind of regulation because it’s another measure to minimize risk to health of the birds,” says Bernard More, an FPVQ rep.

For several years, Quebec has had strict biohazard rules on farms. “Not just anybody can enter a farm and when he does, he must write his name in a visitors log and wear plastic boots,” says More. “We clean and disinfect buildings after each production, that’s about six times a year, when the birds are sent to the transformation factory [slaughterhouse].”

More argues that confinement and other strong precautions are all necessary in the face of a bird flu threat. “Zero risk doesn’t exist. We must be entirely conscious of that. We are fighting an invisible enemy that can propagate in many ways.”