Alpaca therapy helps convicts with mental illness

Yahoo – AFP, LENNART PREISS, August 8, 2020

A German psychiatric hospital is offering alpaca therapy for criminals with mental illnesses

Offenders with mental health conditions at a southern German hospital can pitch in with looking after a small herd of alpacas as part of their therapy.

Staff at the Mainkofen psychiatric hospital in Bavaria say the aim is for the generally calm animals to help patients develop skills towards social reintegration.

Those on the programme have daily tasks, such as to feed the around 10 alpacas, walk them, brush their coats, dress their wounds and clean out their stables.

Erwin Meier, whose name has been changed for this report, has helped care for the alpacas since October and believes it has helped him.

"I like it very much," he said.

Patient Erwin Meier (not his real name) says looking after alpacas has helped 

him to control his anger

"It's fun to work with animals. There is something to do every day."

The animals, which can be known to spit, have helped him to control his anger, said Meier, who did not want to give details about his conviction.

"I used to get angry quite quickly, I was impulsive, but it's improved thanks to the animals, because if I get angry, they get angry too, and the calmer I am, the calmer they are too," he added.

Hats and blankets

The programme is open to all patients at the hospital but intended primarily for offenders.

Alpaca owner Silke Lederbogen has a farm with about 50 of the animals and 

uses their wool to make hats and blankets

If they stay out for too long or outside the authorised hours, permission to spend time with the alpacas is revoked.

Silke Lederbogen, the programme leader and owner of the alpacas, runs a nearby farm with her husband with about 50 of the animals, using their wool to make hats and blankets.

"Usually, patients in the hospital do not have contact with 'normal' people," she said.

But, in walking with the alpacas on the hospital grounds, they are given the chance to chat and answer questions about the animals from interested visitors, patients and staff, she added.

"And they can do so competently," she said.

MPs vote to close mink farms early, after coronavirus hits 17 farms

DutchNews, June 26, 2020 

Mink on a fur farm. Photo: Dzīvnieku brīvība via Flickr 

A majority of MPs voted earlier this week to close down the Dutch mink farming sector three years ahead of schedule, after coronavirus outbreaks on 17 farms in Brabant and Limburg. 

Over 600,000 mink have been gassed since Covid-19 was first found on two farms at the heart of the mink farming industry in Brabant. 

MPs voted in favour of a motion drawn up by Esther Ouwehand, from the pro-animal PvdD, to end mink farming and to ensure the farms which have been have been emptied because of Covid-19 cannot fill their cages again. 

‘Mink farming is not only morally disgusting but a danger for human health,’ Ouwehand said. ‘And by stopping now, rather than in 2024, millions of mink will be spared a miserable life.’ 

There are some 200 mink farms in the Netherlands operated by 165 companies, and the Netherlands is the third biggest mink producer in the world behind Denmark and China. MPs agreed in 2013 to phase out the industry by the end of 2023. 

A spokeswoman for farm minister Carola Schouten told DutchNews.nl  she is working on plans to help mink farmers stop close down their farms ahead of schedule, but did not comment on the parliamentary vote. 

The vote in the lower house of parliament does not mean fur farming will actually be phased out early. The upper house of parliament will also have to vote in favour and it is unclear if there would be majority support.

Mink farm clearances deal final blow to a dying industry: Volkskrant

DutchNews, June 8, 2020 

Photo: Peta.nl

As mink farm clearances continue in the wake of high levels of COVID-19 infection among the animals, the Volkskrant took a look at a dying industry. 

The Netherlands is home to some 128 mink farms concentrated in the south of the country, making it the third largest producer of mink pelts in the world after Denmark and China. 

The use of fur and the conditions the animals were kept had prompted calls to ban the industry since 1989 but didn’t result in a law prohibiting the practice until 2013. At the time, fur farmers were told they would get until the end of 2023 to make good on their investments. 

The impact of the impending ban on some farmers was such that a number of them committed suicide, the paper writes. But for some the fur trade – most of it is exported to China, Russia and Japan, and in Europe to Italy and Greece – has been a lucrative business. 

The biggest earner is Jos van Deurzen from Elsendorp who became a multimillionaire with an estimated fortune of €89m. Van Deurzen has at least ten fur farms in the Netherlands and abroad and also owns factories making mink feed and cages. 

Apart from the blow dealt to the industry by COVID-19, fur farmers had been struggling anyway, the paper says. Overproduction in the last few years has caused the market for fur to collapse and instead of €70 for a pelt the price has now halved. 

In September last year the sector came under the scrutiny of the tax office for suspected tax fraud and money laundering. Over €50m of revenue was thought to have been channelled out of sight via accounts in Luxembourg. 

It is not known whether the fur farmers will be compensated for the mink which have been gassed because of Covid-19 or whether farms will be allowed to start up again once the virus has disappeared, the Volkskrant said.

Thousands of mink on Dutch fur farms to be culled to clear coronavirus risk

DutchNews, June 3, 2020

Photo: Peta.nl 

Thousands of mink living on eight fur farms where coronavirus has been found are to be gassed, government sources have told website Nu.nl and RTL Nieuws. 

The eight farms, operated by six different companies, are all in Noord-Brabant province, which is at the centre of the Dutch fur farming industry. 

Officials have decided the farms should be cleared for public health reasons, Nu.nl said. At least two farm worker has been infected with coronavirus via the animals. 

The Netherlands is due to have phased out fur farming by 2024. In 2016, the Netherlands had some 160 fur farms producing five million pelts a year and the country was the third biggest fur farming nation in the world behind Denmark and China. 

The government is due to make a formal announcement later on Wednesday.

Related Articles:

Dutch start mink cull after virus infections at farm - New

Dutch Supreme Court upholds ban on fur farming

Chinese turn to social media to feed stranded pets in virus city

Yahoo – AFP, February 3, 2020

A man carries his dog in a shopping bag at a pet fair in Shanghai. China is home
to a growing population of pet owners, with pet-related spending in China reaching
nearly $24 billion in 2018 (AFP Photo/JOHANNES EISELE)

Beijing (AFP) - China's unprecedented quarantining of virus-hit Wuhan has separated millions from their families -- and many from their pets, prompting worried owners and kind strangers to take to social media to ensure left-behind animals are looked after.

The virus that has killed more than 360 in China emerged during the Lunar New Year when hundreds of millions were travelling across the country, and the subsequent lockdown on Wuhan and central Hubei province has left many stranded.

The hashtag "save the pets left behind in Wuhan" became the third-most searched term on the Twitter-like Weibo platform Monday, receiving millions of views from those unable to return to the city, where the virus is believed to have originated, and others willing to help.

"Please help me feed my cat", one user posted on January 30.

On Monday, he used the hashtag to post the happy news he had found a "young man" who had agreed to go and feed his cat Maomao.

"In the video chat, after the man opened the door Maomao meowed so miserably, no one has been home for more than a dozen days..." he said.

More than 2,000 people also joined a group created by the Wuhan Small Animal Protection Association on Chinese chat app QQ to look for "kind-hearted people" willing to feed pets left behind in Wuhan by owners unable to enter the city.

One member on Monday asked if anyone would be willing to feed a pet snake. "I'm worried to death" the user, who posted anonymously, said. "I didn't let him hibernate this winter because he's a baby snake."

That post had no takers as of late Monday.

"If any cats and dogs are stranded and you can let me in, I can help you feed them on livestream," wrote Katherine Cui in eastern Zhejiang province -- where the city of Wenzhou was placed under a similar lockdown to Wuhan on Sunday.

"I have many pets at home, and plenty of cat food, dog food and kitty litter, I know too well how important fur babies are."

The drive to save pets comes after multiple Chinese media reports said apartment complexes had banned pets to stop the spread of the virus, as well as unverified reports that people had thrown animals to their deaths for similar reasons.

While the novel coronavirus is believed to have crossed over from animals to humans at a Wuhan market known for selling live wildlife, the World Health Organization has said on its Weibo account there is "no evidence that dogs, cats and other pets can catch the novel coronavirus."

China is home to a growing population of pet owners, with pet-related spending in China reaching 170.8 billion yuan ($23.7 billion) in 2018, according to a report by Pet Fair Asia and pet website Goumin.com.

Animal sector calls for ‘fair trade mark’ for dogs

DutchNews, January 17, 2020 

A healthy and happy spaniel.

There is a fair trade mark for cocoa – so why not for pets? 

Animal rights and vets organisations, concerned about the sale of puppies of unknown backgrounds and health problems, have set up a FairDog platform. 

The website, which aims to be up and running within two years, should offer pet buyers puppies with a certified pedigree and reliable details about their health, behaviour and breeding method. 

According to the NOS broadcaster, some 150,000 puppies are sold each year in the Netherlands. It reports that many are cheap, come from Eastern Europe, and could suffer from health problems such as viruses and bacterial infections. 

Piko Fieggen, of the Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals which is one of the FairDog project’s founders, told the NOS. ‘If you take on a dog, you want a nice dog that you can enjoy without problems. The goal is that in the Netherlands we soon only have healthy and well-socialised dogs.’ 

The initiative will offer a quality stamp for dogs offered on its site, and dogs from abroad will be checked rigorously for infectious diseases. The aim is that it will also offer advice for people who might want to adopt, for instance, a former racehound or stray. 

Linda Wouters, a dog breeder, told the NOS that a screening programme was wise, especially for dogs with a risk of genetic issues. ‘The French Bulldog is a race that often has a lot of problems and often it is simply bred rather than people making an effort to improve the breed,’ she said. 

Vet Mijntje de Beer, who works in Boxtel, warned that a cheaper dog would not come cheap in veterinary bills if it is not healthy. ‘I often see dogs from eastern Europe that just aren’t healthy, which have parasites or specific bacteria or viruses,’ she reportedly said. ‘You can’t take a puppy with diarrhoea to a training course so they quickly get behind in their development.’ 

There are an estimated 1.5 dogs in the Netherlands, and the demand for the pet is thought to be greater than the regulated supply. The FairDog partners have also submitted a report to the Dutch government calling for more co-operation to ensure only ‘well-trained and healthy dogs’ are for sale.

'It's a sin': Cambodia's brutal and shadowy dog meat trade

France24 – AFP, 11 November 2019

Siem Reap (Cambodia) (AFP) - Cambodian dog meat traders drown, strangle and stab thousands of canines a day in a shadowy but sprawling business that traumatises workers and exposes them to deadly health risks like rabies.

Khieu Chan bursts into tears when describing a job that haunts him as he goes to sleep: he kills up to six dogs a day, slicing their throats.

"Please forgive me. "If I don't kill you, I can't feed my family," the 41-year-old tells the 10 dogs awaiting their fate in a cage.

A cheap source of protein, dog meat is still eatem in several Asian countries from China and South Korea to Vietnam and non-Muslim communities in Indonesia.

Animal welfare activists say consumption has declined as the region's middle class has grown -- more people own pets, and there's greater stigma associated with eating dog.

But the brutal trade has flown under the radar in Cambodia where new research shows a thriving business involving roving dog catchers, unlicensed slaughterhouses and many restaurants in cities selling so-called "special meat".

An estimated two to three million dogs are slaughtered annually in Cambodia, according to the NGO Four Paws, which identified more than 100 dog meats restaurants in the capital Phnom Penh and about 20 in the temple town of Siem Reap.

"It has this massive trade," says Katherine Polak, a Thailand-based veterinarian who works with the NGO, which recently presented findings to the government.

Officials were "shocked" by the magnitude, she claims.

Rabies crisis

Motorbike riders criss-cross northern Cambodia trading pots, pans and cookware for unwanted dogs, loading them into a heavy rectangular cage on the back seat and making deliveries to middlemen.

Live specimens fetch $2 to $3 per kilo, incentivising suppliers to collect as many as possible.

Researchers say the dog meat trade is a public health crisis because it carries potentially infected animals all over the country.

Cambodia has one of the highest incidence rates of rabies in the world and most cases are from dog bites.

The trade also undermines local canine immunisation efforts by removing and killing vaccinated dogs.

Unsanitary slaughterhouses have no safety regulations as they aren't overseen by the government, and workers wear no protective gear.

"I got bitten by a dog but I did not get vaccinated because when I returned it was late at night," Pring That told AFP in a village in Siem Reap as he cooked dog meat stew with fermented fish paste.

Instead, the 33-year-old cleaned the wound with soap and lemon.

Industrial-scale slaughterhouses in developing countries put some distance between workers and animals.

But the Cambodian dog trade is hands on.

After receiving delivery, shirtless men poke dogs with sticks into holding cages.

They are then hung, strangled with rope, clubbed over the head or drowned in a pit filled with fetid water.

Just after sunrise in a village in Siem Reap, one worker pulled a dog out of a cage and hung it on the branch of a tree near drying laundry.

After gasping for breath for several minutes, it stopped moving.

It was then placed in boiling water to remove fur and chopped into parts.

"On a good day, I kill 10 dogs or 12 dogs," says former soldier Hun Hoy.

"I also feel pity for them, but I have to strangle them," the 59-year-old adds.

'Hear their cries'

Suppliers can earn from $750 to $1,000 in a country where wages in garment factories are under $200.

Productivity is crucial.

"It's faster to hit them," explains Dara, 30, a collector, trader and butcher.

"I know it's a sin," he adds.

Drowning is the preferred method of slaughter a few hours away in Kampong Cham and Kandal provinces.

"By putting them in the cage and drowning them in a pit, we don't have to hear their cries," said one woman.

Meat and parts are sold onto restaurants, where they are a popular with day labourers as a barbecued snack or a $1.25 soup.

The psychological trauma to bring cheap meat to the table is immense and those who find a better job take it.

Next to his dog cage in Takeo, Khieu Chan spoke about meeting Four Paws during their investigation of the trade.

In an unconventional twist, they gave him land for farming if he would close his restaurant.

One recent afternoon he helped the NGO gingerly take the sickly dogs out of the cage placed under a tree.

But before they were removed and sent to Phnom Penh for treatment, he knelt by the bars to say goodbye.

He says: "Now you have freedom. You are spared from death."

An animal rights collective, known as Dog Meat Free Indonesia Coalition,

together with world-renowned celebrities launched a global campaign to stop

the trade in dog meat on Thursday (02/11) at Hotel Gran Mahakam in South

Jakarta, in light of recent disturbing findings of animal cruelty in the Southeast 

Asian country. (Photo courtesy of Dog Meat Free Indonesia Coalition)

Related Article:

Advocacy Groups, Celebrities Call for End to Barbaric Dog Meat Trade in Indonesia

Dogs trained to offer support to troubled US veterans

Yahoo – AFP, Catherine TRIOMPHE, June 16, 2019

US military veteran Michael Kidd and his companion dog Millie leave after a training
session at the Paws of War office in Nesconset, New York -- Millie helps Kidd navigate
the difficulties of post-traumatic stress disorder (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

Nesconset (United States) (AFP) - Michael Kidd, now 84 years old, fought in the Korean War. His young German shepherd Millie helps calm him down when things start to swirl, usually at night.

Harry Stolberg -- a 42-year-old former Marine who served in Bosnia, Liberia and Nigeria -- has a chocolate Labrador named Rocky who wakes him up from his troubled dreams.

And 31-year-old Phil Davanzo -- who carried the bodies of fallen comrades during a hostage rescue operation that went wrong off Somalia in 2011 -- hopes his Rottweiler puppy will soon be trained to support him during his panic attacks.

The three US veterans, who all live on New York's Long Island, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and have sought solace through pet therapy -- namely, a loyal dog to keep them company.

The shelter animals are either trained or being trained to help them through difficult times by Paws of War, an association funded entirely by private donations that then provides the service dogs free of charge.

The group will also train a veteran's dog if he or she already has one.

Veteran Harry Stolberg says his dog Rocky helps him wake up from the nightmares that 

have come after his service overseas in the Marine Corps (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

"The biggest thing is he wakes me up from nightmares," Stolberg says of three-year-old Rocky.

"He can open the door, come in my room, turn on the lights, take my blinders off me... and lick my hands so I wake up."

Rocky, whose 18 months of training were completed six months ago, also helps Stolberg navigate large crowds, which can be triggering.

"If I can't move, he will get me out of that crowd -- he will pick up on that. He will walk around me and look at it and if I don't respond, he will walk away from the crowd with me hooked up to him," he says.

Paws of War -- their acronym is a play on POW, used to signify prisoners of war -- has been active since 2014.

More than 100 dogs have been trained so far, and the therapeutic results for their masters have been significant.

Michael Kidd's dog Millie, seen here, is being trained at Paws of War to help Kidd 

when times are tough -- he says her assistance has led to a reduced need for 

medication (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

Off the meds

Kidd, who suffers from severe PTSD, has been able to reduce his intake of medication thanks to Millie.

At night when things are tough, "she will come over to me, she will put her paw on my shoulder, on my chest, and just give me a big slobber," says Kidd, whose father was in Normandy on D-Day.

"That's just saying, 'I am here for you.'"

Stolberg used to need sleeping pills to get through the night, but not anymore, thanks to Rocky.

"Sleeping was my biggest problem. (...) Now I only have a nightmare once or twice a month, instead of every day," he explains.

"A lot of that is also because I know that when I go to sleep, he is in the room -- he is going to wake me up no matter what."

Rebecca Stromski, a senior trainer for Paws of War whose husband served in 

Afghanistan and Kuwait, says it takes 18 to 24 months to teach dogs what to do when 

a troubled veteran sends distress signals (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

'Quite a process'

It takes 18 to 24 months to teach dogs what to do when a troubled veteran sends distress signals, according to Rebecca Stromski, a senior trainer for Paws of War whose husband served in Afghanistan and Kuwait.

"It's quite a process actually, creating a mutual respect and a connection between the service dude and the service dog," she says.

"Once the foundations are in place and the dog starts feeling if things are going well or not for the veterans, they start to do certain motions when the guys are fidgeting," Stromski explains.

"I can start and cue that behavior and use that as an alert."

In the face of seemingly interminable wars for US military personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq, deployments which began in 2001, veterans are experiencing PTSD symptoms on a regular basis.

Paws of War has more requests for service animals than it can fulfill, with 50 veterans on the waiting list, according to the group's co-founder Dori Scofield.

So far, Paws of War has trained more than 100 dogs to help troubled veterans on Long 

Island, and has more applications than it can currently fulfill (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

Both ends of the leash

After running an animal shelter for 30 years, Scofield launched Paws of War after being contacted by veterans returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Those soldiers had become attached to dogs they had found in those countries, but were unable to bring them back home.

Through word of mouth recommendations, the association quickly became a top meeting place for the 75,000-strong veteran community on Long Island, one of the biggest in the United States.

"We get applications every day -- we can't keep up," Scofield says. "I can't train enough dogs fast enough."

She has opened satellite offices in Florida and in northern New York state. She has also launched a free mobile veterinary clinic where veterans can bring their companion animals.

Dogs who might have ended up put to sleep in shelters now have homes, and veterans are rediscovering "a reason to get up every day, get moving, get out," Scofield says.

"It has been just so awesome, helping both ends of the leash."

Doggy diagnosis can sniff out seizures: study

Yahoo – AFP, March 28, 2019

Dogs are awesome (AFP Photo/Astrid Stawiarz)

Paris (AFP) - Dogs can use their remarkable sense of smell to recognise the specific scent of seizures, researchers said Thursday, raising hope that canine carers could one day protect sufferers before a fit takes hold.

Previous tests have shown dogs are able to detect the odours of certain diseases, including some cancers, diabetes and malaria.

There is also anecdotal evidence they can sense that their owner may be about to have a seizure, though this was poorly understood until now.

Researchers in France used five dogs -- Casey, Dodger, Lana, Zoey and Roo -- in a study to sniff out a scent specifically linked to a human seizure.

Dogs' noses have evolved to be highly sensitive, and can detect specific organic 

compounds at a concentration of less than 0.001 part per billion (AFP Photo/OLI SCARFF)

They presented the dogs with a variety of smells taken from epileptic patients, including body odours emitted during calm activity, while exercising, and during an attack.

Casey, Dodger and Zoey all identified the seizure scent 100 percent of the time, while Lana and Roo sniffed out the right sample two goes out of three.

"The results went beyond our expectations by showing that there is indeed a general odour of an epileptic seizure," Amelie Catala, a researcher at the University of Rennes and lead study author, told AFP.

"We hope it will open new lines of research that could help anticipate seizures and thus get patients to seek security."

Dogs are awesome (AFP Photo/Astrid Stawiarz)

Dogs' noses have evolved to be highly sensitive, and can detect specific organic compounds at a concentration of less than 0.001 part per billion.

The most sophisticated current "electronic noses", meant to pick up potentially harmful odours that humans can't smell, have a detection threshold of around 300 parts per billion.

Catala said that while dogs had been shown previously to be able to sniff out chronic diseases, this experiment showed they could potentially diagnose acute health episodes that last just a few minutes.

"The study of odours by the use of dogs constitutes a fast, low-cost, non-invasive, and effective screening method of diseases that can be difficult to identify normally," she said.

The paper was published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

Service dog accompanies late president Bush on final farewell

Yahoo – AFP, December 3, 2018

Sully, George H.W. Bush's service dog, seen at Ellington Field in Houston as
the president's casket left for Washington (AFP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Washington (AFP) - A US president is believed to have said the easiest way to find a friend in Washington was to get a dog. On Monday, George H.W. Bush's faithful service dog Sully made a final journey back to the US capital with the late president.

Two days after Bush's death at age 94, family spokesman Jim McGrath posted a touching photograph of the yellow Labrador retriever lying down in front of Bush's casket, with the accompanying phrase "Mission Complete" and the hashtag #Remembering41.

The two-year-old Sully has been at Bush's side since June, just weeks after the death of the president's wife Barbara, to whom he was married for 73 years.

Bush's son George W. Bush, the nation's 43rd president, posted the photograph on Instagram, with a message announcing Sully's transfer to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in suburban Maryland.

"As much as our family is going to miss this dog, we're comforted to know he'll bring the same joy to his new home, Walter Reed, that he brought to 41," the younger Bush wrote. His post has received a quarter million likes.

Sully is named after retired airline pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III, who gained fame when he landed a damaged passenger jet on New York's Hudson River in 2009.

Historians believe Harry S. Truman's folksy aphorism about friends in Washington and dogs is probably apocryphal -- the 33rd US president didn't actually like dogs -- but he would surely have fallen for Sully's charms.

The four-legged friend is already something of an online star. Sully's own Instagram account describes the dog as "a kinder, gentler labrador," a play on Bush's words in his 1988 acceptance speech, when he called for "a kinder and gentler nation."

The account -- with 123,000 followers -- has playfully chronicled Sully's time with Bush at Walker's Point, location of the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.

It features a photograph of Sully laying down in front of Bush and Bill Clinton, the man who defeated him in the 1992 presidential race. The two men struck up a close friendship.

Sully was provided to Bush by America's VetDogs, a group which pairs service and therapy dogs with people with physical limitations like blindness, or those who suffer from effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.

University of Amsterdam offers puppy love to stressed students

DutchNews, October 16, 2018, By Senay Boztas

JennyC via wikimedia commons

The University of Amsterdam is offering over-stressed students the chance to cuddle up with puppies to relieve exam stress next week, it has confirmed to DutchNews.nl. 

It will have a puppy room available with 750 seats for two afternoons in its library, saying that research demonstrates that a quarter hour of puppy love can lower blood levels of cortisol, and therefore reduce stress during exam week. 

The puppies are being introduced to the students, too, apparently as a vital part of their socialisation training. 

The idea, reportedly, comes from British universities including Bristol and Nottingham. The puppies are provided by agency Catvertise and are costing the university some €400. A total of 160 students will be able to benefit and are being asked to sign up on social media. 

According to the sign up page, the event is already sold out.

Dutch egg probe widens to chicken meat tests

Yahoo – AFP, Charlotte van Ouwerkerk and Jan Hennop, August 8, 2017

"Chickens have feelings too": Dutch animal activists wave banners and placards
as they stage a protest at a poultry farm in Witteveen (AFP Photo/Erik Brinkhorst)

The Hague (AFP) - In a new twist in Europe's tainted egg scandal, Dutch authorities announced Tuesday they had started testing chicken meat coming from affected poultry farms to determine whether it was also contaminated.

Scientists are looking for the presence of the insecticide fipronil, a substance potentially dangerous to humans, after supermarkets in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland pulled millions of eggs from the shelves.

"We are currently testing chicken meat in the poultry farms where eggs were infected to determine whether the meat is contaminated as well," Tjitte Mastenbroek, spokesman for food security agency NVWA, told AFP.

The probe focuses on "a few dozen" farms that produce both eggs and chicken meat, NVWA said.

Meanwhile, the Dutch Safety Board, the country's agency looking into civilian safety issues, announced it was opening its own probe into why fipronil was not detected earlier in eggs as well as "the role in this of the poultry sector and Dutch government."

"The way consumers have been informed about the risks of fipronil are also being investigated," the Hague-based OVV said in a statement.

Millions of chickens now face being culled in the Netherlands as the scandal widens across Europe.

Hard-hit Germany on Tuesday called on Belgian and Dutch authorities to quickly shed light on what it termed a "criminal network" involved in the contamination of eggs with fipronil.

"When one sees a criminal energy that's almost organised as a network it's unacceptable," said German Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt.

He again criticised Belgian and Dutch authorities' tardy response to the crisis.

Belgium's top agricultural official Monday ordered the country's food safety agency to report within a day why it failed to notify neighbouring countries until July 20 despite knowing about fipronil contamination since June.

"It's not in the spirit of the early warning system to be aware in June but only to inform us by the end of July," Schmidt said.

Mastenbroek told AFP that a criminal probe by the NVWA under Dutch prosecution authorities and assisted by Belgium is continuing, looking at the role of companies in contaminating Dutch poultry farms with fipronil.

Meanwhile, the French government said Monday "thirteen batches of contaminated eggs from The Netherlands" were delivered in July to food processing companies located in central-western France.

First egg, now chicken

Mastenbroek said so far her agency's "highest priority" has been the detection of contaminated eggs.

"But now we also have the time to look at meat as a precautionary measure," she said.

Most farms exclusively produce one or the other, said Eric Hubers at LTO, a Dutch farming organisation.

If the meat tests are negative for fipronil, producers will be cleared to resume sales, Mastenbroek said.

LTO said the probability of chicken meat found to be infected was small.

However, if fipronil was detected "farming will be completely suspended," Mastenbroek said.

'Cutting costs'

The contaminated egg scandal erupted last week when up to 180 Dutch farms were shuttered due to the presence of fipronil discovered in some of the eggs.

It is believed the toxic substance was introduced to poultry farms by a Dutch business named Chickfriend brought in to treat red lice, a parasite in chickens.

Dutch and Belgian media reports that the substance containing the insecticide was supplied to Chickfriend -- a small company operating out of the Dutch poultry heartland in the central town of Barneveld -- by a Belgian firm have not been confirmed.

Currently Dutch authorities have closed down 138 poultry farms -- about a fifth of those across the country -- and warned that eggs from another 59 farms contained enough levels of fipronil that they should not be eaten by children.

Belgium has blocked production from 51 farms -- a quarter of those nationwide -- with fipronil found at 21 farms, although levels were ten times below the maximum EU limit, the country's food and safety authority AFSCA said.

Other European countries including Austria, Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal and Romania said they were analysing imported eggs, but so far no contaminated eggs were found.

Enviromental group Greenpeace on Tuesday called for massive reforms in the food supply system to become safer, healthier and more transparent and to do away with so-called "factory farming".

"Factory farming has been at the centre of a number of scandals, from Mad cow (disease) to bird flu, from swine flu to horsemeat," said Davin Hutchins, Greenpeace senior food campaigner.

"These are symptoms of a system trying to cut costs at every corner to maximise profits at the expense of public health and the environment," he said.

Dutch tainted egg probe widens to chicken meat tests https://t.co/8KmjKk8eUs #fipronil pic.twitter.com/RaJ3gTXcFU

— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 8, 2017

Related Articles:

Two men arrested in egg scandal following raids in Belgium and NL

Two arrested in Europe as egg scandal spreads east https://t.co/nadjXS4JWM pic.twitter.com/YMTjnlWoy2

— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 10, 2017