Over 215,000 chickens from poultry farms in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Kogi state are said to have died as a result of a strange disease that makes the birds to bleed through the nose, the legs and through the chest, poultry farmers in the two areas have said.

The disease, said to have emanated from a particular brand of brown layers bought from a farm in Kwara state, is said to be killing chickens daily as efforts by the poultry managements through their veterinary doctors have so far defied solution.

When Daily Trust visited Macks Farm in Osara, along Lokoja/Okene road in Kogi State, the manager was said to have gone to Lokoja. However, one of the customers of the farm, Alhaji Musa Adaye, said of the 72,000 layers they bought from a farm in Kwara state, less than 6,000 birds are still remaining.

"They bought 72,000 layers from Yammfy Farms Nigeria Limited, formerly Zarm farm owned by Oba Muftau Gbadamosi. They bought the 72,000 day-old-chickens (DOC) in batches. We started noticing the disease when the chickens were 18 weeks old. As I am talking to you now, over 45 chickens die here every day.

"I am aware that some of the infected chickens were taken to a laboratory where it was discovered that about 80 percent of them were Avian Locus's positive. I followed them to the laboratory and we were told that the disease only affect chickens. It does no harm to human beings. We also noticed that it only affect the brown specie and no other type of chicken," he said.

At Sanfam Poultry, the Production Manager, Mr. Umar Abdulsalam, said all the 60,000 DOC they bought from Yammfy Farm died of the same disease, adding, "ours will start bleeding through the nose then through the legs. They will become weak and tired. They could not even stand on their feet. When you lift them up, you also see blood coming from their chest. That means they will not last 3 hours. A veterinary doctor said it was blood- anemia," he said.

In the FCT, the General Manager of Ajima Farms, a major poultry farm in Abuja, Alhaji Adama Yusuf Musa, said when he noticed the disease among his chicken, he sold all of them out and his farm is not producing eggs now, adding, "sometimes we do have a glut. But as you can see I had a problem along the line. I don't even have the laying birds. We normally bring them in succession. There is supposed to be another set laying eggs now with the hope that these nine weeks olds will replace them. But unfortunately, the farm where I bought the other ones at Ilemona in Kwara state has disease that affected my own.