Yesterday, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) said another 40,000 chickens needed to be culled at Hillgrove farm near Moeraki, bringing the total number of birds culled due to bird flu concerns to 200,000.
Mainland Poultry chief executive John McKay said there were 23 full-time and permanent part-time staff at Hillgrove.
"All of their jobs are secure and there will be no job losses associated with this outbreak," Mr McKay said.
"Work continues on the farm to clean and decontaminate, so some of the Hillgrove staff will be involved in that process while others will be redeployed to our other South Island farms.
"I am incredibly proud of the way our people have rallied during this crisis.
"They have worked quickly, tirelessly, effectively and as a team in very challenging circumstances."
The cull at the farm, including 40,000 birds in each of four layer sheds, and a separate facility on the farm that housed a further 40,000 rearing chickens, was due to be completed yesterday.
Mr McKay said once all the birds were culled the company would move efforts into thoroughly cleaning all sheds and decontaminating the farm.
"Rigorous testing and contact tracing will continue on all of our farms given the incubation period of the virus," he said.
The virus, the H7N6 strain of avian flu, which was found in all four layer sheds at the farm, is believed to have an incubation period of up to 21 days.
Mr McKay said the farm remained under an MPI restrictive place notice, and the company would continue to follow strict biosecurity guidelines under the direction of MPI.
"Our focus is containment and eradicating the virus right now, so any discussion about repopulating and the timing of a return to full production at that farm is premature.
"Repopulating the farm will happen after a stand-down period that will be determined by MPI."
Biosecurity New Zealand deputy director-general Stuart Anderson said international experience showed there was no other way to manage the risk of spread of the virus other than full farm depopulation, followed by cleaning and decontamination.
"We’ve moved quickly in the past week to put in restrictions, investigate, track, and test, and I thank the farmer involved and our industry partners for their help — together we’ve made strong progress," Mr Anderson said.
"More than 1200 samples have been received to date, with hundreds being analysed at a time at our enhanced PC3 laboratory at Wallaceville in Wellington.
"Our response team has more than 200 staff across MPI now involved.
"We continue to put significant resource into eliminating H7N6, and we are confident we are on the right track to stamp it out."
MPI said there remained no risk to eggs or chicken supply due to the size of the national flock.
Further there were no issues for food safety, and the risk to human health remained low.
An animal welfare specialist was on site to observe depopulation operations, MPI said.
