Bird flu has been found in poultry at a pet shop wholesale company in Stolwijk, Zuid Holland province and all 6,600 hens and ducks are to be destroyed.

It is not yet clear if the virus is the highly infectious H5N8 variant of the disease which has been identified in a string of farms across the east of the country.

The company, Dierenhandel Hoogendoorn, supplies rodents, rabbits, poultry and water birds to pet shops and will be closed for at least three months, the economic affairs ministry said.

Over 200,000 ducks and nearly 400,000 hens have so far been killed in an effort to stem the spread of the disease on Dutch farms.