Avian influenza found in South Carolina

[Brooks_]

Anyone in SD? Are there any obvious factors as to why they've had 25 confirmed cases of flock infections? 24 being commercial farms and one backyard flock of 200+. I believe it's mostly turkey flocks, but that's just awful and in one state!

Borders Iowa (very heavily hit in numbers)?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

See this. It depends on the viral load and type type of soil (and also likely the temperature, the virus lives longer in cooler temps). If you are worried about the odd stray poop from a songbird the risk is likely nil.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3437732/

Sadly, this tells me nothing about my (and, I assume your) clay soils. My pasture shoes looked like I'd been walking in orange concrete after last week's rains. I'm also curious about its applicability to simply stepping accidentaly in some duck poo - which is pretty sticky {_ _ _ _}.

Regardless, its all risk management, and I've taken what I beleive to be reasonable precautions in view of percieved risk. The dice have been rolled, just waiting to see what they come up.

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

Also added this graph which is interesting.
View attachment 3049741

Is that US only or considered worldwide for 22+ million? I couldn't tell in skimmin.

 

[MadGardener]

My pasture shoes looked like I'd been walking in orange concrete after last week's rains.

Ah, the phenomenon of getting taller the longer you do mucky chores!

 

[Brooks_]

Is that US only or considered worldwide for 22+ million? I couldn't tell in skimmin.

US

 

[HeatherKellyB]

Out of the 593 listed wild bird detections, 202 have been samples collected from dead birds (NOT hunter harvested). If this is the number of wild birds found dead, reported, and submitted for testing, can you imagine how many infected dead birds that aren't discovered or aren't submitted for testing?

Side note: I'm unsure of the circumstances surrounding the dead Vultures from the Brevard Zoo.

Looks like most of the live bird samples collected have come from Mallards

The amount of dead raptors is growing (specifically Bald Eagles and Hawks). A few owls have been found dead and confirmed ~ snowy and great horned to be specific~

So heartbreaking all around and to think this is so widespread across the world. Really scary

 

[Brooks_]

hunter harvested

That one really confuses me. Who turns over their hunt for testing?

 

[HeatherKellyB]

That one really confuses me. Who turns over their hunt for testing?

They're asked for a sample to be sent off for testing. I'm pretty sure they're not turning over the entire carcass of each bird.
At least this is how I understood it.

 

[HeatherKellyB]

Then again, I'm sure some hunters hunt for the sport instead of dinner. It takes someone with the know how to make a teal tasty, but of course a lot of people do know how.

 

[Sonya9]

That study is very interesting, intuitively logical, and somewhat reassuring.
But it makes contamination of a place like Murray McMurray even more puzzling. Presumably their flock aren’t outside mixing it up with the local geese. Their breeders are most likely kept in covered barns and the disease must have been brought in from outside (vehicles, shoes, feed etc. as others have posted).
So either you need pretty close exposure to a heavy load as the study found, or a speck of goose poop on a show can decimate a flock.
And now I don’t know which it is and therefore how much to alter my flock keeping practices (no cases yet reported Betsy close to me).

I don't think McMuray has breeder birds. Don't they just buy hatching eggs from nearby farms? Could be wrong but I know some of the big hatcheries buy from Amish farms so I assumed they did it the same way.