A Norfolk poultry farmer hit by "devastating" bird flu culls has demanded faster government action to help his industry survive the county's worsening epidemic.

Vets have confirmed seven new avian influenza cases in Norfolk this week - near Wymondham, Mileham, Mundford, two near Feltwell and two south of Dereham - bringing the county's total to 26 this month.

Defra said all birds on the infected premises will be humanely culled - adding to a growing toll of at least half a million birds slaughtered in Norfolk as the nation's worst-ever bird flu outbreak intensifies.

One of the affected companies is Traditional Norfolk Poultry, a free-range producer based near Attleborough - an area which has become a particular virus hotspot.

Director Mark Gorton said tens of thousands of chickens and turkeys have been culled on farms supplying his company - with a huge impact on both his business and his teams.

"In the space of days you can go from having a perfectly healthy flock to being completely empty, with all the birds culled," he said. "It is the speed and shock of what happens that upsets people so much.

"There is nothing you can do. After all you have done to look after the birds, it is devastating."

With Defra and Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) teams stretched by the pace of the growing epidemic, Mr Gorton said information delays are hampering his firm's ability to recover from virus outbreaks.

"The farms which have the disease have been locked down and all the birds have been killed, but APHA and Defra are in complete disarray, nobody can tell you what to do," he said.

"It is a vacuum of information, where we want to get on and run our business and clean these farms down and get them back in production, but we cannot find the people to tell us what we need to do.

"Everything needs to be authorised and there is a raft of paperwork but we are sitting here in limbo, we cannot get hold of anybody. We need to be getting these farms up and running, we cannot sit around with empty farms."

Defra said it is aware of "current vet capacity issues caused by the growing clusters of avian influenza cases", and its teams are prioritising cases on the basis of the potential for disease spread, local trade impact, public health risks and animal welfare concerns.

It is also working to bring in extra "back-up vets" from the private sector, who are now being trained to "ensure we can respond to cases in a timely manner".

Mr Gorton also called for more urgent action on providing bird flu vaccines to poultry farms.

Last week, the UK's chief veterinary officer Christine Middlemiss said there is a lot of international scientific discussion on how to improve and implement vaccines - but it is not likely to provide an immediate solution.

She said existing vaccines used in other countries are "not hugely effective" against current bird flu strains, and they make it difficult to identify the difference between infected and vaccinated birds - causing problems for monitoring programmes.

But Mr Gorton said: "It is very easy to sit there and say we are looking at it, and talking about it. They need to be getting on with it.

"The vaccine for Covid was out within six months because people were dying. We have been talking about avian influenza for years. The vaccine is there, ready to be used, but it is just legislation stopping it coming out.

"I have heard these arguments about monitoring but you don't need to worry about that, because if this carries on at this pace, there won't be any chickens."

All Mr Gorton's free-range birds have been brought indoors to comply with a mandatory housing order enforced last week, requiring all captive birds across Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Essex to be kept indoors, with strict biosecurity measures enforced, to stop the virus spreading.

"It is really wrong that people think this is a free-range problem," he said. "It is absolutely not - it is affecting all poultry.

"We have always done everything we can with biosecurity to protect our birds against all diseases. The housing order was the right thing to do, but it is not going to stop this."

Mr Gorton added it is now "inevitable" there will be a shortage of Christmas poultry, although it is difficult to predict the extent of it.