Official BYC Poll: What Are You Doing to Protect Your Flock From Bird Flu (H5N1) Infection?

[drhannah]

We're still finishing our run. If wild birds have already dropped poop in it, should I be concerned? My babies still have several weeks left in the brooder before going out there? Is there anything to spray the run with prior to putting them out there?

We had this same question when we built our extended covered run. It was hard to find a clear answer; we raked inside really aggressively and used our shop vacuum to pick up as much as we could once we installed the roof.

 

[Folly's place]

One reason I'm reluctant to add to our run space this year. Our coop is inconveniently placed for additions of any sort, sadly. In general it's kept me from adding even more birds, and this year it's really not good in other ways.
Mary

 

[Disheygirl]

Which is completely impossible for vast numbers of people who live in urban areas and difficult for even many people who live in the country.

I am in the country on several acres, but the nature of my sandy, nutrient-poor soil means that I can only profitably grow those vegetables that are either especially expensive or especially productive. In addition, I have to work and can't put in the daily effort of full-time farming that would be needed to coax greater productivity out of it.

Tomatoes and peppers, yes. Cabbage and lettuce, no.

Okra works. Beets don't.

I can grow muscadine grapes and peaches. I can't grow cherries.

The eggs from my chickens are not a profit compared to my former practice of buying the big box of 60 for $14 at Walmart. I *might* be breaking even selling them for $5/18-pack.

10lb bags of frozen chicken leg quarters are, despite so much inflation, still under 65 cents per pound.

The ability of poor people to eat above the barest subsistence level is a thing worth protecting -- far more valuable than even the dearest of pets.

I respect your opinion. But I want to challenge the direction of your energy. We pay an inordinate amount of taxes. Those taxes are used to fund farming. Over the years, farming has gone the way of obscenely unnatural all in the name of the almighty dollar. Animals are pumped full of hormones, antibiotics, kept from nature and sunlight and stuffed in cages. Their quality of life is garbage. They breed birds whose legs break under the weight of their bodies. Their quality of eggs or meat or whatever they produce has drastically decreased. But their productivity is up because of these unnatural methods. Same goes for fruits and vegetables and GMO and chemical pesticides.

Because of all the unnatural processes - how they’re kept, how they’re bred - do you think their bodies are less or more likely to be able to fight off germs than those birds in nature? Why is it that wild birds are largely unaffected but it’s almost a death sentence for a chicken? I don’t know the answer to this - I’m asking the question. Because if you take any animal, and do the same thing - put them in deplorable conditions, tank their immune system, feed them garbage - they will be more susceptible to disease and illness. I realize that viruses are more complicated than this but we saw something similar with C19 where health (or lack thereof) was the top predictor of a poor outcome.

We don’t know how deadly this HP strain is - it’s nearly impossible to get to true or accurate data because they’re wiping out entire flocks when one bird tests positive. Then there’s the anecdotal evidence of someone who has a small flock that dies and it becomes the rhetoric repeated in a vacuum. I’ve seen threads on here where people had flocks that got sick and died, pre-2022 AI scare and everyone else wasn’t shutting their birds in the basement. The mass hysteria isnt helpful. We need to be asking more questions, not just reacting out of fear.

We are not each other’s enemy, and backyard flocks or people’s pets are not the problem. Our energy should be on demanding that the food industry changes its ways. What they’re doing isn’t working; they’re going in the wrong direction and their greedy decisions are affecting the entire country.

Production is up.
Quality has declined at an alarming rate.
Animal husbandry is nonexistent.
Cost is up.
Profit margin is riding in a rocket ship.
The rich get richer.
The poor suffer.

And all those big commercial farms? They’re insured. They’ll be reimbursed by insurance or the government (us).

 

[3KillerBs]

Our energy should be on demanding that the food industry changes its ways.

The rich get richer.
The poor suffer.

Denying poor people access to abundant, inexpensive protein is the very definition of making them suffer.

 

[HappyClucker7]

I have not done anything at all.

 

[Disheygirl]

Denying poor people access to abundant, inexpensive protein is the very definition of making them suffer.

But who is doing that? Do you think that if it were important - if people (poor, rich, or middle) were the focus or the concern, that they'd be killing off millions of birds without testing them? Just assuming a 100% infection rate without proof? You can say that they're afraid that it will spread, but where is the proof that says it will, and at the mortality rate that would make a dent? We live our lives based on risk profiles. If driving came with a 99% risk of death, nobody would drive. Risk and data and statistical evidence matters.

The government has destroyed our supply chain over decades of abuse. Our food is riddled with chemicals that most other countries have banned - Ractopamine is a perfect example and it's in most mass produced meat.

I am raising chickens to provide surplus eggs to poor people. My four person household can't eat (soon to be) 13 eggs a day. Imagine if every backyard flock owner who could afford to help, did. We can be the change, but we have to refocus our energy. Nobody is coming to help us.

 

[Disheygirl]

I have not done anything at all.

I love your signature quotes!

 

[3KillerBs]

But who is doing that? Do you think that if it were important - if people (poor, rich, or middle) were the focus or the concern, that they'd be killing off millions of birds without testing them?

Destroying a few flocks is better than devastating the industry.

 

[HappyClucker7]

I love your signature quotes!

Thank you!

 

[Disheygirl]

Destroying a few flocks is better than devastating the industry.

Where is the evidence that proves it can devastate the industry? It shouldn’t be hard for them to prove using statistics. You don’t think it makes sense to test the birds before killing en masse? Wipe out tens of millions because of a few positive results?