Jakarta – Until a team of government workers sniffing out bird flu descended on his slum by a railtrack in the Indonesian capital, Setia Budi, 45, was the proud owner of a dozen preening turtledoves.
"I have been raising turtledoves pretty much all my life, feeding and taking care of them regularly. It is a lovely sight to watch them soar in the sky," says Budi as the workers mill around the hodge-podge of neighbourhood cages.
But four birds out of more than 250 owned by the residents here have just tested positive to avian influenza according to the team, which last week launched a door-to-door campaign in Jakarta to stamp out the virus here.
Bird flu has killed 20 Indonesians since July last year, mostly in the capital and its surrounds, but this is the first mass culling campaign of this size – even though by global standards it's still very small scale.
Agricultural officials initially said they would kill all birds in a one-kilometre (half-mile) radius of any infections, but now they are saying they will be selective, killing all only if they believe there is a real risk that they are infected. Vaccinations are slated to occur within a three-kilometre radius.
Positive test results, carried out using a South Korean kit costing about 100,000 rupiah (about ten dollars) per bird, leads to all the birds here today being destroyed. They are transported to a nearby incinerator before their throats are slashed.
"This is for our own interests. Go ahead, take down the names of the bird owners and how many birds each man has," subdistrict chief Hidayatullah tells the task force workers.
"It is the lives of the people that we have to save. I'm not going to lie to you by declaring unhealthy birds healthy," he tells the residents, with those owners present reluctantly agreeing to the birds being destroyed.
As in many places in Indonesia, the birds here are kept in close proximity to people's homes, which in this teeming slum in the Central Jakarta area of Kramat are constructed of nothing more than cardboard and corrugated iron.
Setia Budi is upset both about losing his birds and his money. "What I regret is that the government is only willing to pay 10,000 rupiah" for each bird, he says, gesturing to a pair that cost one of his neighbours 1.5 million rupiah. His own cheapest pair were 300,000.
The amount is a huge sum for the slum dwellers, most of whom are unemployed or working as scrap collectors. Naked children squeal as they run freely down the narrow, rubbish-strewn lanes. "If I could choose, I would be more willing to set them free," Budi says angrily.
Edi Maryono, a 44-year-old parking attendant, is more philosophical. "If they have truly tested positive, then it's okay for them to be killed as long as the other bird owners agree to do the same thing," he says.
"I too am afraid of being infected with bird flu, although I have never heard of anyone from this neighbourhood being treated as a suspected patient."
Sixty-year-old Ichsan, who owns 20 birds, is also willing to give them up for the sake of people's health, but complains about the compensation. "I think it's a little bit too heavy for me to take because I have paid quite a lot of money for my birds," he mutters.
And he points out an alarming practice that may be contributing to Indonesia's bird flu death toll. "Whenever we find unhealthy birds we just kill them. We slaughter them, but sometimes we eat them," he admits.
While cooked poultry kills the virus, coming into contact with infected carcasses can pass on the virus to humans, increasing the possibility that the virus will mutate into a form easily transmissible from human-to-human.
Experts fear that this will eventually occur, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions around the world.
Setia Budi, downcast, blames the government, which many have accused for being slow to act in Indonesia. "The government is at their best when it comes to giving us problems," he grumbles.