Activists accuse NYC shops of selling sickly chickens in scramble before bird-flu shutdown

It’s a fowl business.Animal activists accused several Brooklyn and Queens markets of selling “sickly-looking” live chickens as they scrambled to clear inventory before a state-mandated shutdown due to the bird flu.Animal advocacy group NYCLASS shared disturbing pictures they say show TIBA in Ridgewood, Queens selling three “visibly sickly-looking” Cornish cross-breed chickens with significant feather loss — one of three markets in the city they said exhibited stomach-turning conditions in recent days.“I absolutely do suspect that many of these birds could and most likely do have avian flu,” NYCLASS executive director Edita Birnkrant told The Post, though the markets have not had any birds with positive tests.“There’s only been a handful of testing done, [and] there are 80 markets with thousands and thousands of birds delivered every single week.

Everybody is just flying blindly.”Kikiriki Live Poultry, Inc.and Pio Pio Poultry, both in Bushwick, were also said to be keeping the birds in poor conditions in the weekend ahead of the shutdown.The birds shown in the images were crammed into too-crowded cages with several chickens appearing to be dying, Birnkrant claimed.An executive order issued Friday by Gov.

Kathy Hochul mandated all live poultry markets in New York City, Long Island and Westchester County to temporarily shut until Feb.14 after seven local cases of bird flu were discovered in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.The shops found to have infected birds were ordered to be “depopulated,” sanitized and reopened after successful inspections.

Shops without positive bird flu cases were told to sell down all their inventory until Monday, then disinfect and stay shuttered for at least five days while state officials inspect the businesses.Birnkrant, however, contends Monday’s shutdown is far too late to be effective.“This is all outrageously reckless.Governor Hochul must close these markets down immediately and for the foreseeable futur...