Puzzle as birds die

Jemima Vossen with one of the birds as a chick. Photo / Supplied

Jemima Vossen doesn't know it yet, but nine of her roosters and hens are dead after apparently being deliberately poisoned.

The Titirangi 11-year-old has grown up playing with the farm birds which roost on her father's property when they are not roaming around the village.

Jemima's father, software engineer Eric Vossen, said he hadn't told her because she was at her mother's home, but he expected she would be distraught.

"I imagine she will be pretty upset. We haven't had a chance to discuss it yet," he said.

Three weeks ago a neighbour told Vossen that one of the birds was on the street and looked like it had been hit by a car.

"But there were actually two birds lying in the undergrowth. They were dying. They were just lying there, very quiet. Birds can't talk, they can't speak or cry."

When Vossen found that six of his birds were very ill, he took them to Lyn Macdonald of the charitable trust Bird Rescue.

Macdonald said the birds' jerking and twisting symptoms suggested that their feed had been laced with a chemical called alphachloralose, which thickened the birds' blood, stopping a proper flow and causing them to die painfully.

Macdonald said a hen and two roosters died that time, but three other poisoned birds survived after being given charcoal tablets and kept warm.

Titirangi bird-lover Barbara Burnside said roosters and hens had roamed the village for 10 years but had recently become as scarce as hen's teeth.

"The sparrows were dying all over the carpark too," Burnside said.

"My concern is loved pets and cats - if they eat dead, poisoned birds they will die too.

The same week that the Vossens' chooks died, businesses called the SPCA after noticing another three birds distressed and acting out of character.

Korff Associates director Peter Korff said he saw a rooster standing completely still in a carpark before it dropped on to its side, shivering. He said the birds had become a part of the village and people looked forward to summer when the chicks arrived. He had heard no negative talk about them.

SPCA head Bob Kerridge said alphachloralose was not a controlled chemical.

"The problem with this poison is it is available over the counter, which is one of the things we are extremely concerned about, and we have tried for many years to get it taken off the shelves."