HEADS UP AVIAN INFLUENZA ALERT

[chicknmania]

BRING IT ON!

But seriously.....we are new to chicken raising and have a very tiny backyard flock (6 Red Sex Links), I can only speak for myself when I say the USDA would have to bring the Police with them if they want to take our girls. Our girls don't free range and their run is under a roof, all walls consist of 1/4" wire mesh and as of a few weeks ago we try to maintain a strict habit of bio security. Nothing is fool proof, especially since they aren't 100% sure how its spreading. I don't think you are too far off base in regards to the agro-terrorism. We have also thrown around the idea, it's a frightening thought but in the world we all live in you can't rule it out. Best of luck with your flock.

 

[SueIowa]

It's VERY clear that the USDA response plan is solely to protect commercial operations.  Backyarders/small farmers are statistically insignificant even en masse, and the USDA is working with states, who are mobilizing National Guard, to step up for "containment" procedures.

If this strain was highly virulent to humans, I might have a different perspective.  But as it only has "potential" to mutate into a human virulent and in its present state only affect birds, I believe the escalated responses are out of line.  It's the close contact production facilities that allow this disease to spread like wildfire, not the free rangers.  And the numbers are staggering.  I think Iowa has lost about 16% of its production egg layers so far.

Yes, the government DOES have the authority of law to seize contaminated plants and animals.  But as in most cases, the assumption is not "undiseased until proven diseased" but rather the opposite.  Your flock is "probably" sick.  Therefore it can be seized and euthanized and perhaps even tested.  You may find some sympathy with your local police force, but a directive from the USDA via your state's governor to the National Guard will likely be a challenge to combat on many fronts.

http://bigmedicine.ca/wordpress/201...hpai-avian-flu-outbreak/#sthash.EqsgNAX6.dpbs

. Again I ask with this whole USDA conspiracy that you say is running rampant across the country and wiping out backyard flocks with no warning who exactly is this happening to? Yes there are random cases popping up iin Kansas, Washingon, British Colombia, Kentucky and now Indiana that the USDA has tested backyard flocks and destroyed them when results came positive. Here in Iowa that I know about 60 miles from me some backyard ducks tested positive and were culled but they were on the same property of 3 chicken confinement buildings that also had all their birds culled. Show me more than 10-15 cases that have occurred out of the hundreds of thousand of backyard poultry raisiers and then I will beleive your conspiracy theory.
If the USDA wants to find us then go to our local Bomgaars store. Last year they sold over 6000 baby chickens, turkey, ducks and guineas in this area. Anybody, including myself , had to sign papers saying who we are , what we bought and also list our address anytime we bought poultry from them.
And yes again...not one backyard chicken farmer like me has had any correspondence with any county officials or USDA members.
The one statement that Walnut Hill said makes me laugh...and that is my entire flock is probably sick. Wow ..you can tell that all the way up in Michigan?! Amazing. I am done. This is my flock and again today they are out wandering my farm. If this whole theory of Walnut Hill's is correct should I take down my finch feeders, chase away all the hummingbirds, take down all the wood duck houses my granpa installed in the 1980's. Is the USDA going to eradicate all them too? Have a good day everybody.

 

[chicknmania]

Yes. And why spread terror, Walnut Hill? Again, lets' emphasize this...THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS SPREADING THE VIRUS. It's not, IMO, a pandemic yet. But it does seem to me that if there was a huge risk of contamination from wild birds, wouldn't we see more dead ones? We were just at Lake Erie (Magee Marsh) to go birding. We did not see one dead bird up there, but thousands of live ones. Believe me, we did take precautions there. We brought Oxine spray with us, took a rental car, and thoroughly washed and Oxined the rental car inside and out before we brought it anywhere near central Ohio. We changed clothes, and scrubbed and sprayed our shoes, did everything possible to make sure we weren't carrying anything back here. And I only went because I know someone who runs a wildlife education center who said she was going to go birding up there, and wasn't too worried about it. But the weird thing was...this is the National Week of Birding up there. People come from all over the world to see the birds who have been migrating across Lake Erie. But there was no mention at all about bird flu...most people I talked to about it, including the locals, had no good idea really. Likewise, at the Toledo zoo, there was no lockdown in their aviaries when I was there while on business, and that was three weeks ago. Again, I took the same precautions going there as I mentioned before. But it seems that, despite all the hoopla about backyard flocks, there's not really as much concern as many would have you believe.

 

[chicknmania]

Thank you very much, SueIowa. I hope you will not leave Backyard Chickens. I need to tell you that I very much appreciate your contributions, I have been looking for someone in an affected area, such as you, that can give us updates. I hope you will continue to do so. I really believe that if your "entire flock were sick" you would certainly know by now.

 

[MrsBachbach]

Being from Northwest Iowa I am smack dab in the middle of the hot zone for the bird flu. My husband and I have a huge flock of free ranging chickens and ducks and turkeys. We also have large farm pond that our ducks have shared with wild Canadian geese, wild ducks and blue herons for the last 6 years including this spring. I have had no sick birds. We don't sell our eggs as we have family members relying on us for eggs. It is interesting all the frenzy and daily news about this terrible situation taking place mostly in the Midwest locally we have had hardly a word in our newspaper and limited stories on the radio except for statistics of how many facilities are being effected. We have no idea except for one or two leaks of which egg, chicken or turkey facilities have found infected with bird flu. In the county south of us they now have 14 infected facilities and just in the last couple days the National Guard is setting up barriers. We have not been contacted by any USDA officials even though we are on heavily traveled road and most people in our community know we have large backyard flock as we also have pumpkin farm we open every fall. There has been no officials knocking on our door or notifications that anybody local has been found with bird flu infecting their birds even though we know one in our county has it. It seems like with the national news running story after story about the bird flu around here it is very quiet. The other thing that bothers me is that in all the articles and research I have done there is not one scientist or official that can say exactly how this is being spread or how exactly the source. So far it has been all speculation. Yes...it could be the wild birds as they carry the gene and it can be found in traces of their feces. But scientists have known that for years. About these facilities being effected I want to see the links between each facility that has it... That is what the news isn't telling us. How many of these facilities have gotten bird flu due to a human factors spreading the disease? It's just odd that with the huge media hype and coverage locally there is no detailed information coming out. Maybe I am a fool but I am letting my chickens run and have the same free range habitat they have always have. The only difference is we are more aggressive keeping wild birds off our pond. In the long run I figure if my birds get sick there is not much I can do. If the USDA wants to test my birds go right ahead... Again I am not going to be in a panic as there are too many unknowns not being said. Thanks for reading and sorry for long rant. I love all my birds and hope this terrible tragedy goes away but it doesn't look like it. Sue

The problem with the USDA testing your birds is if they find that any of your birds have ever been exposed to AI, even the mild North American version, then your whole flock is culled. Whether they are sick or not. Waterfowl are natural carriers that usually don't present symptoms. I would bet these backyard flocks that are testing positive probably have some ducks or geese in them. They find the NA version in them...bam! The whole flock is considered positive for AI and culled. I have two dogs right now that test positive for exposure to a certain tick borne illness, but they are well and symptom free. All they have to find is an antibody showing exposure. I would not be a bit surprised to find that many backyard flocks have had some exposure to the north american version of AI and developed a resistance to it. It's been around for years and years. Farms have always had a mixture of ducks, geese, turkey and chicken on them. Birds had to have developed some type of resistance over the years or there would be more problems with AI here than we have seen over the years. One thing we have not heard and likely will not hear, is how many birds in these culled flocks actually died of the new virus? Did they indeed have the new virus or the milder strain? You can't trust the media for the truth because to them, everything is HPAI. The new strain is what is causing the problems because nothing has had a chance to develop resistance to this yet, but they will cull your flock even if they find the NA version in it, which has been around for many years.

These commercial operations and their geneticly engineered flocks are inferior as far as disease resistance, imo. They have been bred for laying and weight gain and have no exposure to outside elements and practically no genetic diversity. The culling of such large numbers is more a preventative (to prevent the virus from mutating) measure than disposing of sick birds. But the movement of the virus is indeed a mystery. I have concerns with this too, but like you, I'm not going to put my birds under STRESS, by keeping them penned in the hopes of preventing exposure. Heck, if biosecure commercial operations can't keep it out, how the heck can I reasonably expect to? I have commercial farms all around me here, so I am concerned because if one of them gets infected, I'm sure I will be quarantined or worse. Neighbor farmer fertilizes his field across the road with turkey litter every year. I'm sure my birds have been exposed to plenty just from that! One thing I don't have is waterfowl or ponds on my property. So, at least I'm not visited by waterfowl.

 

[WalnutHill]

. Again I ask with this whole USDA conspiracy that you say is running rampant across the country and wiping out backyard flocks with no warning who exactly is this happening to? Yes there are random cases popping up iin Kansas, Washingon, British Colombia, Kentucky and now Indiana that the USDA has tested backyard flocks and destroyed them when results came positive. Here in Iowa that I know about 60 miles from me some backyard ducks tested positive and were culled but they were on the same property of 3 chicken confinement buildings that also had all their birds culled. Show me more than 10-15 cases that have occurred out of the hundreds of thousand of backyard poultry raisiers and then I will beleive your conspiracy theory.
If the USDA wants to find us then go to our local Bomgaars store. Last year they sold over 6000 baby chickens, turkey, ducks and guineas in this area. Anybody, including myself , had to sign papers saying who we are , what we bought and also list our address anytime we bought poultry from them.
And yes again...not one backyard chicken farmer like me has had any correspondence with any county officials or USDA members.
The one statement that Walnut Hill said makes me laugh...and that is my entire flock is probably sick. Wow ..you can tell that all the way up in Michigan?! Amazing. I am done. This is my flock and again today they are out wandering my farm. If this whole theory of Walnut Hill's is correct should I take down my finch feeders, chase away all the hummingbirds, take down all the wood duck houses my granpa installed in the 1980's. Is the USDA going to eradicate all them too? Have a good day everybody.

I think you are reading a great deal more into what you read than was intended or said.

I did not say that your flock was sick. My flock is not sick either. I have taken the precaution of excluding songbirds from the coops as much as possible, and chase away the random wild duck that ventures in, but as the transmission methods are unknown this may or may not be helpful.

I did, however, state facts as expressed in the USDA HPAI emergency management responses as published in the link I provided a few posts ago. The USDA has the authority to take whatever means it deems appropriate in containing the spread of the virus. The USDA has stated that it will establish quarantine zones around confirmed infected sites, and this has in fact been implemented. What happens in the quarantine zones? The USDA has also implemented its "elevated threat" plans which include partnering with the affected states to help control and eradicate infected flocks.

I do consider this a serious threat to us, as backyard poultry keepers and small scale farmers.

The USDA's tracking site currently shows more than a dozen backyard flocks that have been confirmed and eradicated. I am not saying that the USDA goes door to door with trailers into which birds are vacuumed up and hauled off. I am saying that they DO have the authority to do so "in the interest of public health" and to preserve commercial operations.

 

[MrsBachbach]

. So you are saying that the USDA is going to sweep in without any warning,no testing, or no quarantine period and wipe out my flock. Yes I seen your previous posts about the USDA eradicating all potential sources of avian virus but you show me where this is happening or happened to people like me or my neighbors who all have chicken coops. I live in rural farming community and I can show you over 50 backyard flocks in this county alone and not one of us had been contacted by any county official or the USDA. So to take bio security measures to protect my flock I should lock up all my birds in my 6 chicken coops is going to prevent my birds getting sick?! Yep... That really worked for all the huge chicken or egg laying facilities. They still got sick. Until the USDA figures out exactly why the avian flu is spreading it is pure speculation. I am not going to panic as again there is nothing any of us can do about it except the same I have always done. Take care of my flock, keep their water clean, feed them fresh greens and other healthy food sources, yes... Let them free range.

I wouldn't put anything past this government. There is no telling what was in the farm bill, Obamacare, or what the executive order flavor of the week might be! Thousands and thousands of pages of legislation that nobody reads, but it's voted on and enacted anyway. They need a dang bill that says that bills can't be more than three pages long! That would only take one line and one page and solve a big problem with the way Washington works.
I know one thing. Whatever was in that farm bill, it wasn't written to protect people like us.

 

[markt1]

I am due to have 11 juvenile pullets delivered June 9th from McMurry Hatchery. Their website claims that they have no problems with the virus. Yet there was a heavy outbreak in Wright County immediately north of Hamilton County where they are located. I have a handful of geese I keep as pets. Should I risk delivery or try to cancel the order?

 

[WalnutHill]

That is a call that only you can make. If an outbreak hits their area and they are quarantined before your order ships, then you will not receive your poults. If not, they are clear to ship. Many of the hatcheries have contract farms that do the grow-outs, though, and you have no insight into those.

At this point as no one knows the disease vectors, and geese or ducks in the neighborhood are more likely to be infected than yours.

 

[chicknmania]

Organic farmer friend of mine wrote this:

The best thing we can do is work to make the immune system of our birds the best it can be - - That means giving them fresh pasture and grass, good feed (in my case non-gmo verified feed based on the Fertrell formula, and allowing them room to behave as they naturally do. I spoke to Jim Adkins for the Sustainable Poultry Network and those were his recommendations.