"I signed the agreement to buy those chickens, so I am facing double the losses of farm owners," said Ye Enlin, who has lost more than 10 million yuan in sales during the past month.

Ye has slaughtered and frozen a few hundred mature roosters in the hope of selling them in two or three months, as a means of minimizing his losses.

Ye Guowang, 63, sits in his chicken farm in Tengqiao village, Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. He said he is wasting money by the minute on feeding 10,000 chickens that cannot be sold because of the H7N9 bird flu outbreak. [Gao Erqiang / China Daily]

And it's not just the breeders who are suffering; poultry sellers who've been forced to close their stands at agricultural produce markets are waiting anxiously for an end to the outbreak, but the cases keep appearing.

"I am making some money by transporting vegetables to other agricultural markets, but we're struggling to make a living at the moment," said Xia Maochun, who sells poultry at an agricultural market in Gaoling Road, Shanghai, and regularly supplies nearby restaurants and residents.

Xia faces a monthly loss of about 40,000 yuan after closing his market stall. He is currently waiting for the local government to release information about reopening stalls and markets.