Avian Flu

[FARMminiature]

Because Avian Flu has been a huge topic, I’m curious of opinions. It’s crazy to me that it’s recommended to eradicate whole flocks if Avian Flu is found, because you can’t eradicate all the wild birds that are possibly infected. Wouldn’t it make more sense in the long term to have chickens immune to this disease? I’m not a biologist nor do I have a lot of knowledge with diseases. Please help me. Can I have valuable information? I love to learn and hear facts and/or opinions.

 

[SilverBirds]

There are two types of AI that poultry get, which are HPAI (high pathogenicity avian flu) and LPAI (low pathogenicity). HPAI stains are very deadly to birds, while LPAI is less severe and can be treated. The strain that has been going around this year is called H5N1 (HPAI). Since there is no real cure, it is almost always fatal and very contagious, which is why it is best to cull infected birds ASAP. Culling an infected flock helps eliminate the spread of the disease. I know that it's sad for backyard owners to have to do this, and at great cost to the commercial farms, but it's the best for everyone. Birds with the disease that are not being quarantined or culled can shed the virus to wild birds, which can be spread to other wild birds, which can spread to poultry, which can be spread again to more birds, leading to a mass outbreak of the disease, which is where we are now. Some strains only affect certain types of birds at certain degrees of severity. Wild birds can carry AI, but they may not show symptoms or become ill from specific strains (waterfowl in particular), whereas it is fatal to domestic birds.

Birds can't just become immune to diseases any more than humans can. There are vaccines that can be given to help prevent it, but they only help against specific strains, and you can still become sick after receiving one. Once the virus starts to mutate, a new vaccine has to be made. AI has been mutating faster, making the disease more easily spread and making it harder to develop new vaccines. It's also very difficult to vaccinate every single bird in every single commercial and backyard flock, and it's as good as impossible to vaccinate wild birds.

Here are some sites and articles that go more in-depth on what AI is, how it spreads, and the precautions to take to keep your flock from becoming infected.

Avian Influenza in Birds
Why Is Bird Flu So Bad Right Now?
CDC (General Info)
USDA APHIS (General Info)
Avian influenza basics
USDA APHIS (confirmed detections)
Thread-Avian Influenza Found in South Carolina
Bird Flu: What You Need To Know

You can also do a search for Avian/Bird flu in the search bar of this site for threads on the subject.

 

[FARMminiature]

I thought that in the long term it would be better to let the strong survive and build up some resistance to avian flu, that I didn’t think would ever be completely eradicated. Thank you for the information! You were very thorough and helpful!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I thought that in the long term it would be better to let the strong survive and build up some resistance to something that I didn’t think could be completely eradicated. Thank you for the information!

In theory, you are right. In theory.

In practice, AI is a an Influenza Type A virus. Potentially, there are 16 different H types, and 9 different N types affecting pountry [currently], making roughly 144 different potential combinations before getting into variations within clade and subtype (of which there are thousands to tens of thousands). There are an additional 2 H-types and two N-types Not [currently] affecting poultry, bringing the total combination of types to almost 200 before considering variants within the lineage. Its simply impractical to try and develop immunity or strong resistance to all of them.

Since most HPAI outbreaks are H5Nx{###.##.#) or H7Nx{###.##.#), there have been limited effort to develop vaccines. They are largely ineffective, limited to just a few of those thousands or tens of thousands of the potential variants, and in places where they are being tested, other Hx Influenza A virii outbreaks are increasing in frequency w/i kept poultry flocks, with increased mortality as well (though not meeting the HPAI definition, which is based on mortality, NOT the specific virii involved). In short, Virii adapt faster than poultry do.

Now, since we are talkking about theory, I'll help fill in a bit more to improve your understanding of just what a problem HPAI is. A virus which killis its host too quickly, and too frequently is a failure - there's real risk it will burn itself out before it has a chance to spread, its devastation limited to a small geographic population. Human examples include Ebola, Marburg, and a host of other short incubation, high mortality hemmhoragic diseases. Avian influenze has already licked that problem. As fatal as it is to chickens, potentially, it has only limited symptoms and extremely low mortality in waterfowl songbirds, and carrion birds - all of whom serve as a natural reservior of disease, and most of whom engage in annual migrations which both ensure spread of the disease across wide geographic areas and provide opportunity for new variations to arise as infected birds congregate together in summer and winter feeding grounds.

In short, Avian Influenza is already highly successful as a bunch of closely related viri - its WAY WAY too late to try and put this particular genie back in the box. The damage LPAI and HPAI do to commercial and home poultry flocks is utterly immaterial to AI's success, from its perspective. Every chicken on the planet could isappear tomorrow and AI would continue to thrive. For your idea to work, you would likely need a timescale much longer than humans vave been on the planet.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

apologies for all the spelling errors - I was eating baked chicken at the time. Now I'm cleaning my keyboard. I'm not going back to fix the spelling, above

 

[FARMminiature]

In theory, you are right. In theory.

In practice, AI is a an Influenza Type A virus. Potentially, there are 16 different H types, and 9 different N types affecting pountry [currently], making roughly 144 different potential combinations before getting into variations within clade and subtype (of which there are thousands to tens of thousands). There are an additional 2 H-types and two N-types Not [currently] affecting poultry, bringing the total combination of types to almost 200 before considering variants within the lineage. Its simply impractical to try and develop immunity or strong resistance to all of them.

Since most HPAI outbreaks are H5Nx{###.##.#) or H7Nx{###.##.#), there have been limited effort to develop vaccines. They are largely ineffective, limited to just a few of those thousands or tens of thousands of the potential variants, and in places where they are being tested, other Hx Influenza A virii outbreaks are increasing in frequency w/i kept poultry flocks, with increased mortality as well (though not meeting the HPAI definition, which is based on mortality, NOT the specific virii involved). In short, Virii adapt faster than poultry do.

Now, since we are talkking about theory, I'll help fill in a bit more to improve your understanding of just what a problem HPAI is. A virus which killis its host too quickly, and too frequently is a failure - there's real risk it will burn itself out before it has a chance to spread, its devastation limited to a small geographic population. Human examples include Ebola, Marburg, and a host of other short incubation, high mortality hemmhoragic diseases. Avian influenze has already licked that problem. As fatal as it is to chickens, potentially, it has only limited symptoms and extremely low mortality in waterfowl songbirds, and carrion birds - all of whom serve as a natural reservior of disease, and most of whom engage in annual migrations which both ensure spread of the disease across wide geographic areas and provide opportunity for new variations to arise as infected birds congregate together in summer and winter feeding grounds.

In short, Avian Influenza is already highly successful as a bunch of closely related viri - its WAY WAY too late to try and put this particular genie back in the box. The damage LPAI and HPAI do to commercial and home poultry flocks is utterly immaterial to AI's success, from its perspective. Every chicken on the planet could isappear tomorrow and AI would continue to thrive. For your idea to work, you would likely need a timescale much longer than humans vave been on the planet.

Thank you for the explanation!

 

[FARMminiature]

apologies for all the spelling errors - I was eating baked chicken at the time. Now I'm cleaning my keyboard. I'm not going back to fix the spelling, above

Eating chicken while on a chicken forum…

 

[raingarden]

It is not just about birds. HPAI can be zoonotic and contracted by humans although it does not happen very often so far.. The big fear is that when people become infected a more transmissible and virulent mutation will appear and become the next human pandemic. Epidemologists have been worrying about an AI human epidemic for years; and the threat only gets worse. COVID should have taught us something.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

[...] COVID should have taught us something.

Why should this time have been any different? As a species, there are some lessons we don't seem to want to learn...

 

[BDutch]

An article from levende have in NL about the the bird flu and the nonsense of keeping poultry locked in. https://www.levendehave.nl/nieuws/u...ogelgriep?mc_cid=b4460c73df&mc_eid=6a83c147c1
Most important part. Translated with google:

The bird flu epidemic has now lasted more than fifteen months. During all that time, a large part of the country had an obligation to contain and shield *). Up to the present day. For chickens that are used to living in freedom, that feels like an eternity. They probably don't know any better by now. But all the restrictions do take their toll. The chickens miss foraging, taking a dust bath in a self-chosen spot.
And why? What are the dangers? From the point of view of virus spread, what is the difference between an infected wild bird in a pasture and an infected chicken in a private garden? And why is there no legal obligation for site owners to clear up dead wild birds?

The longer this takes, the greater the question marks about the usefulness and necessity of the obligation to protect. Especially now that outbreaks are no longer the order of the day. Many private individuals with a few chickens have now given up trying to protect their animals against bird flu with all kinds of constructions of fences, nets and ribbons. They run loose again, or they have been dumped because their owners want to get rid of the nagging.

Directions are hopelessly out of date
In the initial phase of the epidemic, the obligation to shield, or the instruction to "prevent contact with the excrement of wild birds", was still based on rational considerations, now the measure mainly has a routine character. With every infection, the government repeats the message: "For non-commercially kept high-risk birds (growls/chickens, (ornamental) waterfowl and ratites), for example in zoos, petting zoos and owners of birds and chickens, and for commercially kept pheasants, ornamental waterfowl. and ratites, a protection obligation applies.''

It is a gray turned gramophone record. Conviction is missing when an enforcer says: "Just do this now, then we will at least do something". Everyone now knows that the virus has spread so widely and that so many mammals have become infected that shielding with fences, nets, tarpaulins and ribbons as a preventive measure no longer makes much sense. An infection is a matter of bad luck.

The instructions given by the government for the implementation of the shielding obligation (as can be seen in the video on the NVWA website) are hopelessly outdated. At the beginning of the epidemic, the virus mainly came from above, from wild birds, but it has been clear for some time that rats and mice also spread bird flu. One microgram of virus on the feet of these animals is enough to wipe out an entire chicken coop with bird flu. And then there are the numerous infected carcasses in the meadows and ditches, which are eaten by polecats, martens, dogs or cats, which then become infected themselves, or otherwise take the virus to the poultry of the hobby keeper. Only a strict hygiene protocol could prevent contamination. Although that also offers no guarantee, as witnessed by the many bird flu outbreaks at poultry farms.

After a year and a half of bird flu, it can be said that a fence with ribbons, wires, nets and tarpaulins only offers hobby poultry a false sense of security. At least, no one can tell whether this form of prevention actually works. Its effect has not yet been studied. It is also not known whether the animals were screened off at the contaminated locations with hobby poultry. Nor can it be said with certainty whether the infections could have been prevented by (better) shielding.
Information about the numbers of infections is extremely limited. The government has so far not provided data on how many chickens and waterfowl from hobby poultry farmers with fewer than 50 animals have become infected since the start of the epidemic in October 2021. A map on the NVWA website shows only thirteen infections. According to other data, crested fowl, chickens, ducks, geese, and swans have become infected at 15 of these hobby sites in the past five months. But how many animals are actually involved and whether they were all sick cannot be determined from the available data.