Very sorry for your friend. I wish we didn't have to worry about disease so much. My husband always shows old pictures of chickens just out free ranging, many of them...wonder how nice it was with no worry of disease back then.
I told him we chase the geese off but the Mallards need to go too..but he pointed out any birds can spread it and that's true.
Will pray for her, feel so sorry for her.
This highly deadly avian flu is spread by wild waterfowl, so if I were you, I'd chase off the wild ducks and not worry a bit about the songbirds. It has never been reported by any authority that it comes from songbirds, just wild waterfowl, which are just geese and ducks, mostly Canada geese and mallard (though can be any species) ducks. I just want to correct this so people don't flip out if a sparrow lands on their property.
Worry about what's real, not what's speculation. Marek's is the only disease that is everywhere in the environment and carried by all species of birds, which is why everyone should buy vaccinated chicks from hatcheries, or vaccinate their birds themselves. It is the only vaccine recommended for backyard flocks by the avian veterinarians as Purdue. They need to get on the stick and come up with a multivalent vaccine against AI, but it's hard because like human flu and colds, there are almost 100 combinations of it. It's very, very difficult to make vaccines against that many different genetic types, but they could focus on the worst strains surely. I hope within a year or two there will be a useful avian influenza vaccine for our poultry, but for now, all we can do is be alert, and do not be afraid to report deaths in your flock. If you do nothing, you will still lose all your birds, and also contribute to its spread which is unfair to your neighbors. You would not want someone to stick their head in the sand and by doing so expose your flock.
Be vigilant. Be smart. Be knowledgeable.
