The Government defended the handling of the H5N1 bird flu outbreak as a cull of thousands of birds continued.
Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw denied there had been a delay in taking action at the Suffolk farm where the potentially deadly H5N1 avian flu strain was found.
Around 159,000 turkeys are being culled at the Bernard Matthews farm in Holton as experts try to find the source of the outbreak.
Mr Bradshaw said: "There were a small number of birds that died on Tuesday and on Wednesday but nothing unusual in a flock of this size. You do get birds dying in those sorts of numbers.
"It wasn't until Thursday, when more than 800 birds died, that the Bernard Matthews vet quite rightly informed the local State Veterinary Service and we immediately put restrictions on that farm. So this idea that there was some delay is simply wrong."
Tests were carried out on Friday, and the strain was identified as H5N1 on Saturday morning when exclusion zones were immediately imposed.
The Cabinet's emergency contingencies committee Cobra is meeting to discuss the bird flu outbreak.
Government departments, the police, the local authorities, and the state veterinary service will give updates at the meeting.
Mr Bradshaw said he was "satisfied" that everyone had moved as quickly as possible to stem the spread of the disease.
He told Radio 4's Today programme: "The experience of the last year or so in the rest of Europe is that the measures that we have here in our plan - and they are the same in every EU country - have been sufficient to stamp out and contain outbreaks in a single area."
