Poultry industry has more powerful lobbyists than backyard chicken owners.
Exactly right, I'm pretty sure you would win that bet. Those large commercial operations pay taxes and contribute to the coffers of the bureaucrats in Sacramento, so they deserve protection. Of course, the rest of us pay too, but usually not through our poultry activities... The question that comes to my mind, is how does this virus get into closed buildings, with supposed bio-security going on, and no exposure to any infective elements except for new chickens? Where do they get their new chickens? Since the usual egg farm hen only lays for 2 years, I think, before becoming canned soup. Or is it the employees that bring it in? Because some of them are rooster raising hobbyists so to speak? Commercial chicken and egg producers need to look at areas in their operation that expose them to risk instead of blaming pet chicken owners for their problems (including employee activities). I still think this whole bungling operation is just an attempt to look like they are doing something and may be doing more harm than good. The people they contract out to do the dirty work are probably poorly paid, uneducated, and probably care little about biosecurity, and only do what they have to to keep their job. They may be responsible for spreading the disease themselves, as they go from house to house, probably with little supervision to see that they do adhere to any kind of biosecurity. How is the average backyard owner to know that they changed their outfits before knocking on the door? They won't. My personal feeling is that the disease will run its course in it's own time. We don't really know what conditions start it but there probably are some, related to weather, border crossings, animal imports, upsurges in bird populations, etc. It wouldn't even have to be poultry imports, since chickens run around loose in barnyards everywhere, other farm animals could bring it in, even predators, who are more likely to catch and eat a sick bird than a well one, could act as vectors, as they go from place to place. Birds of prey may roost in a tree over your chicken coop and drop feathers and debris from their meal into your coop. Those in charge need to step back and do some research, compare weather conditions and other factors in the year of these outbreaks and see what seems to drive this disease. Maybe answer that question as to why this doesn't happen in Florida and the East coast. My belief is that the wild bird population is more resistant because no one does anything to protect them, those susceptable die, and those that survive are resistant and reproduce, but may become carriers, like bats and skunks carry rabies. That is how nature deals with this kind of problem and the result is a stronger, healthier more resistant bird population, or an extinction event.
Maybe an industry shouldn’t have been built housing a million chickens in close quarters on top of one another? Profit and greed was the driving force not just meeting demand. Now the economy is dependent on it. Some things should change and with it might come a little discomfort for some.
