LOS ANGELES county CA under bird quarantine :(

[HenOnAJuneBug]

Just a guess, but if anything comes back positive, a new perimeter is set up and the killing continues...

I wonder how reliable the tests are? I know during AIDS the tests for HIV antibodies were notoriously unreliable and gave false positives for things like pregnancy, tuberculosis, flu, etc. Would be tragic if they continue the killing based on false positives.

 

[BreanneRN]

I wonder how reliable the tests are? I know during AIDS the tests for HIV antibodies were notoriously unreliable and gave false positives for things like pregnancy, tuberculosis, flu, etc. Would be tragic if they continue the killing based on false positives.

Hopefully, any positive they get would be checked through a more sensitive method, though I don't really know if that is what happens, as they really aren't forthcoming with the public about anything they do.

 

[BreanneRN]

You can pretty much see, however, why the vaccines for this disease are not popular here in the states. Any vaccinated bird will produce a positive result with any test used. At least if the vaccine was good and did what it was supposed to do. In Mexico, vaccines are widely used, as well as in other countries. But they are not trying to "eradicate" the disease, just live with it. In other countries, destroying someone's whole flock of chickens might mean that that family will go hungry.

 

[BreanneRN]

In Mexico, where VND is endemic and routinely morphs into new, more virulent strains that are resistant to vaccines, it is unlikely that anyone reports the disease. If no one reports the disease, at least in the technical sense, there is "no problema", and this is the front that the world sees. They may or may not vaccinate, some chickens get sick and die, others survive and pass on their resistance, unfortunately some survivors, just like wild birds, probably carry the virus and may infect other birds, especially if they are moved across the border to the US, where no birds are vaccinated and there are huge commercial chicken and egg farms with birds that are extremely susceptible to the disease, since they are bred to devote all resources to maximum egg laying or rapid meat production at the expense of an immune system. Here, we then attempt to "eradicate" the disease with testing and kill zones around any reported or tested positive birds. It is a "big deal" with lots of publicity and the whole world hears about it, and lots of money is spent (money that Mexico could never generate). The US as a country has always been a leader in mass food production, and there are probably more huge factory farms here than in any other country in the world, with the possible exception of China. I'm not sure exactly what goes on over there and I don't think anyone else knows either, though they eat a lot of chicken and have a huge population to support. Many animal diseases get their start in Asian countries and NVD reportedly got it's start in Java/Indonesia and spread around the world. I am going to post a link to an article that gives a reasonable synopsis of the history of the current outbreak (minus any report of the really shabby treatment of citizens by the untrained people of the CDFA) in which Annette Jones admits she should have started much earlier to address the problem, and a link to the "no drama" facebook group that has been founded by Mikki Sharp to counteract Kerri Hand's facebook site and support the USDA/CDFA efforts. No one is allowed to criticize the USDA/CDFA efforts there and she contends that everything put out by Save Our Birds is "misinformation", drama, and counterproductive to ending this outbreak. Still, it does have some useful information posted and they keep track of new cases on there (though they note discrepancies in the reporting of cases between the 2 agencies, just as we have noted here). Both these facebook groups are kind of biased in opposite directions. I personally am glad Kerri Hand took the actions she did because it did make a difference in how the birds and owners were treated and brought problems to public awareness, which caused them to be addressed. I can't help but wonder if this outbreak will be "over" when people quit reporting it (kind of like what probably goes on in Mexico). https://newfoodeconomy.org/virulent-newcastle-disease-california-vnd-euthanasia/

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

In Mexico, where VND is endemic and routinely morphs into new, more virulent strains that are resistant to vaccines, it is unlikely that anyone reports the disease. If no one reports the disease, at least in the technical sense, there is "no problema", and this is the front that the world sees. They may or may not vaccinate, some chickens get sick and die, others survive and pass on their resistance, unfortunately some survivors, just like wild birds, probably carry the virus and may infect other birds, especially if they are moved across the border to the US, where no birds are vaccinated and there are huge commercial chicken and egg farms with birds that are extremely susceptible to the disease, since they are bred to devote all resources to maximum egg laying or rapid meat production at the expense of an immune system. Here, we then attempt to "eradicate" the disease with testing and kill zones around any reported or tested positive birds. It is a "big deal" with lots of publicity and the whole world hears about it, and lots of money is spent (money that Mexico could never generate). The US as a country has always been a leader in mass food production, and there are probably more huge factory farms here than in any other country in the world, with the possible exception of China. I'm not sure exactly what goes on over there and I don't think anyone else knows either, though they eat a lot of chicken and have a huge population to support. Many animal diseases get their start in Asian countries and NVD reportedly got it's start in Java/Indonesia and spread around the world. I am going to post a link to an article that gives a reasonable synopsis of the history of the current outbreak (minus any report of the really shabby treatment of citizens by the untrained people of the CDFA) in which Annette Jones admits she should have started much earlier to address the problem, and a link to the "no drama" facebook group that has been founded by Mikki Sharp to counteract Kerri Hand's facebook site and support the USDA/CDFA efforts. No one is allowed to criticize the USDA/CDFA efforts there and she contends that everything put out by Save Our Birds is "misinformation", drama, and counterproductive to ending this outbreak. Still, it does have some useful information posted and they keep track of new cases on there (though they note discrepancies in the reporting of cases between the 2 agencies, just as we have noted here). Both these facebook groups are kind of biased in opposite directions. I personally am glad Kerri Hand took the actions she did because it did make a difference in how the birds and owners were treated and brought problems to public awareness, which caused them to be addressed. I can't help but wonder if this outbreak will be "over" when people quit reporting it (kind of like what probably goes on in Mexico). https://newfoodeconomy.org/virulent-newcastle-disease-california-vnd-euthanasia/

Great post!
It’s not that the broilers, layers, & turkeys are bred with poor immune systems it’s that they are all genetically the same. So when a pathogen enters the warehouse where they are kept it spreads like wildfire.
Who is this Mikki Sharp? Does she have chickens? If not then she obviously has no idea what chicken owners are going through.

 

[BreanneRN]

Great post!
It’s not that the broilers, layers, & turkeys are bred with poor immune systems it’s that they are all genetically the same. So when a pathogen enters the warehouse where they are kept it spreads like wildfire.
Who is this Mikki Sharp? Does she have chickens? If not then she obviously has no idea what chicken owners are going through.

Yes, she apparently has poultry in the Hesperia area (high desert, San Bernardino County). It is part of the quarantined area and there have been cases up there. She just firmly believes that judging the efforts of the USDA/CDFA (or lack thereof) and Annette Jones is hampering the efforts to end the epidemic, so mostly she tries to get the word out about the disease (by encouraging bulletin board feedstore displays and posting info on her site) to discourage people from moving their birds around and encouraging home biosecurity, methods of which are also posted on her site. I believe she even mentioned spraying your car tires... Hmmm, if the CDFA personnel did the things that she is suggesting, I don't think anyone would be complaining to start with. Still think dumping the bags of bodies at the end of the day in a landfill (when they won't be covered or buried until the next morning) is a bad idea even if they are double bagged (per Annette Jones). Mikki is in complete denial about that and it can't be discussed. It is just "drama". Viruses do not need to actively replicate to stay infectious. Unlike bacteria, which have to stay alive to grow, viruses can lie around dormant for years in the ground and on surfaces waiting for some host to come in contact and then be infected. Once in a live host, the virus takes over the living cells in the body, and with RNA, causes the cell to produce viral copies of itself, which then infect other cells, continuing the process. That is what viruses do. So just one is enough. Even some bacteria are able to form spores, which enable them to infect something after being sterilized by boiling. Fortunately, bacteria grow and duplicate themselves, a slower process than turning your hosts own cells into little virus factories. I believe the whole landfill thing is an expediency, because they didn't want to spend the money to dispose of them some other way. I still don't think it is a good idea. If rats and rodents can spread the disease, they will have no problem eating through plastic trash bags. I have had them eat through heavy duty plastic trash cans to get to my chicken feed. I have tomatoes planted in one of them that they put a nice drainage hole in because it was expensive and had wheels and I didn't want to throw it away. And seagull activity at landfills is heaviest at dawn and dusk. You can reach her site by clicking on the facebook link toward the end of the article (it just say facebook, but it will take you there). You can learn a lot about biosecurity methods there, different things to use, etc. One kind of scary thing mentioned on that site was that the CDFA might be using feedstore records to find people with poultry... Might be just a rumor.. But you do have to wonder how they find people in targeted areas.

 

[zenith_cirice]

i am saving to buy a house in a few years and i had wanted to get a couple of chickens to keep in my yard as i absolutely love them, they make great pets, plus fresh eggs. but with all this going on i am reconsidering — everytime a case of VND pops up is the CDFA gonna go around and massacre every bird within a certain amount of miles? theyre never gonna be able to truly eradicate it, so i just see this same cycle happening over and over again. i dont want to get attached to an animal and then have to have it killed, healthy/exposed or not. wish they would come up with a better plan than something that causes so much anguish to so many people. some people are alone and their pets are all they have. so much unnecessary cruelty....

 

[BreanneRN]

i am saving to buy a house in a few years and i had wanted to get a couple of chickens to keep in my yard as i absolutely love them, they make great pets, plus fresh eggs. but with all this going on i am reconsidering — everytime a case of VND pops up is the CDFA gonna go around and massacre every bird within a certain amount of miles? theyre never gonna be able to truly eradicate it, so i just see this same cycle happening over and over again. i dont want to get attached to an animal and then have to have it killed, healthy/exposed or not. wish they would come up with a better plan than something that causes so much anguish to so many people. some people are alone and their pets are all they have. so much unnecessary cruelty....

Don't know where you are located, but if buying a house, stay away from areas that have a lot of commercial poultry operations and or cockfighting "exhibition birds", if you can. I would look for a house that doesn't have much around it in an area not densely populated. Perhaps you don't live in California, in which case, you may not have to worry at all. Or, this seems to be a temperate climate disease, so living in the mountains at a certain elevation may keep you from having problems.

 

[zenith_cirice]

Don't know where you are located, but if buying a house, stay away from areas that have a lot of commercial poultry operations and or cockfighting "exhibition birds", if you can. I would look for a house that doesn't have much around it in an area not densely populated. Perhaps you don't live in California, in which case, you may not have to worry at all. Or, this seems to be a temperate climate disease, so living in the mountains at a certain elevation may keep you from having problems.

im in california, right now in an apartment in the LA area but I am looking to buy somewhere way less populated up in or near the mountains (probably the Sierras). Was wondering if maybe it might not be as much of a problem up that way so yeah, thanks for your input. makes me feel a little better

 

[Taylorbrood]

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I read that “Samples from flocks are tested at the California Animal Health & Food Safety Laboratory System. The APHIS National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, confirms all findings.”

I have heard this to, but CDFA says one thing while the USDA says somehing else.