TOKYO -- The government of the Miyazaki Prefecture in southern Japan on Tuesday morning reported that three birds at a poultry farm in the city of Nobeoka have tested postive for a highly pathogenic H5 strain of avian influenza.

According to the prefecture, the farm reported 16 chickens' death Monday, of which three preliminarily tested positive for bird flu. Ten chickens had died the day before, but tests results were negative.

The local government is culling roughly 4,000 chickens raised at the farm at 2:30 am local time. It also asked nearby poultry farms to restrict the movements of livestock, said Japan's Kyodo News Agency.

Miyazaki is Japan's largest grower of broilers, whose outputs account for around 20 percent of all the chickens in the country, data released by the Agricultural Ministry showed.