Avian Flu (H5N1) - Discussion

[JacinLarkwell]

Do you know if it's a onetime fine?

Probably not.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

This is a tragedy from inhumane modern farming. Animals are meant to be pasture raised, not cramped in cages or over crowded barns.

I fail to see the moral superiority in starving humans in order to raise food more naturally - though I have no particular fondness for homo sapiens sapiens, as a rule.

/edit and so its clear my "money" is where my mouth is. My free range birds in their pasture this AM. (3 of approx 60, anyways)

and another picture of the pasture:

I eat my birds, and sell their eggs. Given the choice, I don't engage in equipment intensive monoculture plantings of crops or livestock. As result, my birds are at substantial risk from HPAI (my flock, see signature, below) also contains ducks, and my pasture has a small (20x30) pond. I'm not some shill for big Gov't, big Business, big Pharma, or much of anything else.

...and as a matter of mathematical certainty, the acres my wife and I enjoy won't support our own nutritional needs, or that of our animals - and certainly would not support even 1/10th the worldwide human population if attempted at scale, no matter how "morally superior" some might claim these methods to be.

Nature is ammoral. For a time, you eat. Then you are eaten. Along the way, you get good weather and bad. Only death is guaranteed.

Want to better your odds? LEARN STUFF.

 

[SarahLadd]

Man, the views in this thread are more scary than the avain flu is! It must be nice to think everything is made up, exaggerated and false. Like, if it's not in an archaic religious text somewhere, it must be some kind of government leftist conspiracy to kill what we love and steal our freedom! Seems like a really easy cop out to having rational and evolving thoughts on today's ever evolving issues.

Broaden your scopes past the precious babies in your tiny backyard setup and realize that this is a problem. Not just for YOU, IF your birds get sick, but for everyone.

It is utterly exhausting trying to reach these people. Sometimes I feel like I am in a twilight zone. I am not sure if it's possible. You cannot reason someone out of what they didn't reason themselves into to begin with. Lost causes.

 

[Lenny loves chickens]

Probably not.

I am just saying if my flock is all healthy then there would be no reason to cull

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I am just saying if my flock is all healthy then there would be no reason to cull

Not sure what that has to do with a one time or multiple fine

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Exactly! It's because of all the disgusting factory farms!

as it turns out, factory farms are SAFER from this than backyard flocks. You have it exactly backwards.

 

[Lenny loves chickens]

Not sure what that has to do with a one time or multiple fine

I was just reasoning that if it was one time I might do it, depending on how expensive same thing with multiple times.

 

[ColtHandorf]

HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza), as opposed to LPAI (Low Pathogen) is a catch all phrase for a group of H5 and H7 strains of AI which have mutated in ways which make them both highly transmissible, and highly lethal to chickens. After exposure, mass cullings remains the only **effective** way we have of trying in some fashion to blunt the spread of the disease, which is carried by other birds (waterfowl particularly) with much lower rates of lethality.

Numerous LPAI strains remain within the environment at all times, primarily in waterfowl. These strains can transmit to chickens, and are generally non-lethal or have low levels of lethality, often taken for simple respiratory issues consistent with a large number of poultry diseases. LPAI H5 and H7 strtains can spontaneously mutate in chickens to become HPAI vaireties of the same via well understood biological processes - usually involving chickens with other viral infections at the same time where transposition errors in viral replication result in new fragments being attached to the resulting genetic material. Mostly in self defeating ways, but occasionally in ways which make the virus in some fashion more effective.

Tracking of AI by Gov't programs is decades old, not just here in the US, this isn't some "new thing" or part of any modern conspiracy. Europe and the Near East have been struggling with HPAI outbreaks for several years, and have multiple strains currently active across the pond. The US has an HPAI outbreak roughly once a decade.

It is commercially devastating, and has the potential to put a serious dent into the US food supply - chicken being one of the most readily affordable animal protein sources for the majority of Americans. The same is true in other nations, and the disease is heavily studied. Current US policy, similar to that of other nations, is to attempt to isolate and destroy pockets of HPAI when detected before they get to commercial processing, where a small flock of birds could infect (and quickly kill) tens of thousands of others being held awaiting butchering. Such an event would shut down the packing plant until it could be thoroughly sanitized as well, a process of at least two weeks duration. Given the concentration of commercial poultry packing into just a few facilities, a shut down is a regionally significant event - part of why PotUS declared meat packers and poultry processors to be key personnel like Drs. and nurses at the start fo the COVID pandemic. Without them, the US doesn't eat.

I hope that, in the unlikely event one of your flocks is infected, you do the responsible thing and ensure both testing and if confirmed, complete irradication of your flock (saving many from a painful death) rather than a misguided attempt to "protect" your flock via a method which is the poultry equivalent of placing an extended family in the home of someone with Ebola and then hoping for the best - only HPAI is MUCH more lethal.

I have high hopes my own flock will remain uninfected - but if I start seeing a sudden die off, I'll be on phone and text immediately with my State offices to arrange on site testing and "containment" - though it would end my egg business, virtually destroy my efforts at culling my way towards a bird better suited to my local conditions, and be emotionally painful to my wife.

Very well said. So nice to see an adult posting something of value rather than the hysterical histrionics of children that have literally no idea what they are talking about.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I was just reasoning that if it was one time I might do it, depending on how expensive same thing with multiple times.

If the birds are testing negative and they aren't setting up burn/kill zones, the birds are probably safe

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Do you know if it's a onetime fine?

Depends on the State, and in many States, being fined is NOT where this ends. Its where it starts if you are lucky. The State has the legal authority to go onto your property and destroy every bird there in the name of the public health and welfare - its a core power of the Government, which predates the US by many centuries.