What I Learned From My Awful Experience with Avian Flu

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

This was so tragic to read. I hope you and your family can find peace after going through this.

On a side note, the way they treated this situation seems counterproductive. If people know this is how they act when there is a case of avian flu, who on earth would even get their flock tested? I think it would be much more productive if they just had some sort of quarantining policy and maybe just culled birds (or gave the owners the choice to do it themselves) who were past the point of being able to heal.

This whole situation sounds like some of the irrational nonsense that went on at the beginning of Covid (I know it didn't stop then but you have to admit we did some weird stuff at the beginning of the pandemic). I'm not sure if culling is the answer. There will likely need to be herd immunity that builds up, which is why it would be good to keep the birds who aren't dying from avian flu alive.

 

[Disheygirl]

What a gross and disgusting overreach of power. It sounds like a story from a third world dictatorship. I’m sorry you had to go through that horrific experience.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

My condolences on your loss.

The cull is, in the view of the State, necessary to remove a reservior of highly fatal disease from the environment as a way to reduce the risk that it is spread to commercially important poultry flocks, devastating the industry in the State, and helping to create shortage.

The power to do so is part of the State's "general police power" to see to the health and well being of its citizens, and traces its origins in common law back to around the 14th century. Its part of the core duties of government, an aspect of mutual defense.

And while the practice is positively medieval, reflecting a time when cheap, fast, effective widespread testing for disease was impossible, it is also a reflection of the modern US legal system. Normally, if your dog causes injury to another, you can be found civilly liable for the damages and pay monetary compensation. In a nutshell, that's our system. As a practical matter, even if a disease outbreak could be tracked back to a single source, unless you are one of the wealthiest people in America, you just don't have the assets to pay the damages if one of your infected birds were to wipe out a flock of 100,000, 250,000, or more. Nor would paying financial compensation in any way change the shortages and price increases if greater numbers of birds were affected (as have been in this outbrak, and the 2015 one, and the one before that, or the last two Newcastle outbraks in CA, or....)

So, as a practical matter, there being no ADEQUATE remedy at law, the various States seem to be in no particular urgency to update statutes (some of which are now 200+ years old) of quarantining and culling livestock as a means of disease control.
In short, your birds were culled by the State to protect business interests in the State due to the danger they posed to chickens and turkeys intended for our food supply.

While you might claim (and indeed ensure) that your infected birds remained quarantined on your property the rest of their natural lives, you can't guarantee that you wouldn't unknowingly carry that risk with you when you left your property (the prior Newcastle outbreak was carried from farm to farm on people's trucks!), or that wild bird species visiting your property and becoming exposed to your reservior of infected waterfowl, would not then carry that disease to others.

For those reasons, the State did what it did.

I know that is almost certainly unhelpful from an emotional standpoint, but I hope the explanation helps you to understand that it was not done to be cruel. I think almost everyone understands its a draconian solution to a potentially catastrophic problem.

 

[TheOddOneOut]

I knew from Day 1 that this was political. I will try to not say too much, because of this venue but, IMHO the elite are spreading curable diseases and panic to control the World population. Farm animals, like Chickens and Ducks are a cash business and they want to control all cash so it becomes a cashless society.

 

[Geena]

Although, Barbara was actually right

 

[theoldchick]

Just awful.

 

[chickfused]

I'm so sorry. :\

 

[janiedoe]

I am just so sorry, Colleen.
Your story is heartbreaking. No one should have to experience such callus behavior from anyone. Especially the very people that work for we the people.

 

[All4Eggz]

I feel heartbroken reading your story.
I’m so sorry this happened.

The government is getting far too corrupt and the power and voice of the people is fading daily…

Sending my prayers your way!
Hope to hear from you soon.

Ben

 

[Liz Birdlover]

I wanted to share...

It's an awful, terrible, painful day. One I don't wish on any of you. The state just killed all my babies. Even the brand new magpie ducks that just arrived in the mail yesterday and have never even set a webbed footie on the tainted ground that is now my 10-acre quarantined piece of property.

I loved every single one of my babies. I'm a good momma. I spoil them. I know each of them. I can tell you which one liked strawberry smoothies, or which one hated kale, and how their little white ducky bibs get stained pink with watermelon every morning.

My beautiful geese were hand trained to sit on my lap. They followed me from task to task, watching me in my windows as I vacuum or cook, and even climbed up on the deck and tapped on the slider when they wanted more lettuce or wanted to be held.

The first thing that happened is that one of my ducks had a runny eye. We dosed it with eyedrops and assumed it had run into something or had duckie pink eye. It cleared in two days so we didn't think any more of it.

Then one of my young geese became sick.

It looked like neurological problems and lethargy. His head shook like he was seizing. He died in one hour. I asked some other goose moms what it could be. Everyone else in the young gosling flock was fine. We all agreed he must have eaten something toxic like a nut or a penny.

A few days passed and another goose started looking ill. I made an appointment with the vet and researched. None of the books mentioned Avian Flu and I hadn't heard anything about it on the news. My ducks and geese free range around my home. We have a year-round creek and a seasonal pond frequented by waterfowl. Even the vet didn't suspect it. We were thinking Fowl Cholera.

He prescribed antibiotics which we began dosing the sick goose with and putting into the water for everyone else just in case.

The next day, several more geese became ill and the one I'd taken to the vet died.

I called the vet who said to bring in the baby for testing and we'd for sure figure out what was happening, meanwhile to keep up the treatment. Some of my geese appeared to be getting better with our watermelon, antibiotics, and syringe water feedings.

I went to a hair appointment and was talking about my poor flock when my hair stylist mentioned the bird flu epidemic. I googled it and she sent me an article with a phone number. While I had foils in my hair, I called for information.

Here's where everything goes from bad to worse.

Immediately, instead of information, I get interrogated as if I'm a criminal. When I explained what happened, they wanted to know my email, address, phone number, and my vet's information.

I gave it to them and hung up, thinking my vet would handle the rest.

Ten minutes later they called me back and acted even more aggressively. They said they couldn't contact my vet but they are taking over the "investigation" and appropriating the "sample" sent to OHSU and that they'd send it to Iowa and have results back by 5 PM and would be in touch.

I didn't know what to say to that. I never gave permission for the government to appropriate my goose. I was only calling for information.

By the time I got home, there was a message on my phone that the sample sent to Iowa had come back positive for HPAI-High Path Avian Influenza, and was Thursday a good day to cull my flock?

"Umm, wait a minute. Hold on," I said. "I'd like to investigate my options first. You know, talk to my vet. Do some research."

"What do you mean? If you're talking about hiding your animals. You can't do that. Some people try, but we will stop you."

Holy Crap.

Now I'm not a rebellious type. I drive the speed limit. I obey the law. But I also love my animals. I didn't know who this was. Something felt off. It was moving way too fast. I don't just hand over my baby because a stranger told me to. Would any mother? If an animal is sick, I put it down. But all life is precious. I want to think about it for a minute. For heaven's sake, let me breathe and at least try to understand the need to lose nearly one hundred animals. It's a lot to ask someone.

I told them my intention was not to hide my animals and I reassured them that they were all contained in our barn in separate pens (we'd confined our sick geese and separated the sick from the healthy already). I said I wanted to wait until I received confirmation from my own vet and consult with him before making any decisions.

They said there was no decision to make but that they would let me talk with him and that it was the only humane thing to do as all my birds would die terrible agonizing deaths and I wouldn't want that, would I?

Now that kind of talk is irresponsible. It's assuming and threatening. They don't know anything about me or how I take care of my animals. I'm an extremely careful, very loving animal owner.

I called my vet the next morning. He confirmed the diagnosis and said they had the legal right to put down the entire flock.

I asked him why they wouldn't test individual birds to see if they had it. If it was a matter of money, we would pay. He said it was policy. They just wouldn't.

Then I said, "According to what I've read, ducks and geese seem to survive this virus but become carriers."

He said that was correct.

My vet was kind and expressed empathy and agreed that putting down domestic animals in no way will stop this virus. If I hadn't reported it, they simply wouldn't have come out.

I said, "Isn't it possible that all the ducks and geese in the area have already been exposed and recovered from it?"

"Yes."

"Then we're putting down my babies for nothing."

"That's essentially correct. It's putting out fires where they can be controlled. To actually eradicate this virus we'd have to destroy every waterbird on the planet and that's just not possible."

"So because they can catch mine and test them, they die."

"Yes."

After that phone call, I found an email from the state putting my property under Quarantine for six months. And there was a phone call saying they'd get a court order if they didn't hear from me by noon on Wednesday. That was less than 24 hours after my first call. I don't know about you, but I don't typically pick up calls with numbers I don't recognize.

So I prepared myself for today and said my tearful goodbyes to my babies knowing I had no other choice.

Everyone got a huge dinner of roasted zucchini, corn, watermelon, lettuce, and peas and a soft, fluffy nest of an entire bale of straw. We hugged each bird and told them we loved them and they were special and wonderful and thanked them for sharing their lives with us. That they were beautiful and gave us so much joy. We told them they can swim in God's pond. That His pond is so pretty. It's full of delicious things they can dive for and sunny warm rocks to take naps on, and every morning is wormy morning, and the grass is delicious and thick and sweet and He puts out lots of fun things for geese to tear up and destroy. He even sometimes leaves His mud shoes outside for geese to move around and hide.

We took some photos and cried and cried. Our gander, our most special boy, snuggled his long neck into the crook of our arm and sighed. He gave us two of his feathers as if he knew he was leaving and wanted us to remember him.

I'd been planning to tell the state vets the story of each duck and goose as they killed them but I could tell they didn't care.

These aren't real vets like Dr. Pol. They're bureaucrats. Politicians with a license to kill animals. They smiled pretty while they were at my home.

But when we asked questions, there were several things that didn't add up.

1) He freely admitted that geese were getting sick from the virus but ducks heal. If we wanted birds again in the future, get ducks. You wouldn't even know they were sick.

What? Is the problem that they are sick or that we know they are sick?

2) When I asked if we needed to watch out for dead wild birds, the answer was no. They survive and stop carrying the virus after six months.

I followed up with "Then can't I simply quarantine my animals for six months until they stop shedding the virus?"

The answer was, "No. We can't risk that. You might contaminate the grocery store, for example, and other people might spread it to their flocks."

Personally, I disagree. I know how to quarantine. I know how to use Instacart. I work from home. That would be a small price to pay to keep my animals. That should be my decision. Give me a list of protocols and let me decide if I'm willing to follow your parameters.

3) My birds free roamed the property. We have lots of walking paths and fairy gardens. I asked if that meant we couldn't garden or walk the paths.

His answer was no. There are no restrictions.

That doesn't make sense. There are still wild birds on the property including waterfowl. Why is it perfectly fine for me to go to the grocery store wearing whatever shoes I want knowing my poor birds picked up the virus here from wild birds that are still floating on our pond but they have to be killed?

I'm not a conspiracist or anything. But I don't feel like we were treated well or with kindness or empathy. My nesting goose and gander kicked and screamed in the garbage can as they gassed them and their eggs in and I nearly collapsed when they then dragged out my poor hen's body and threw it in another can.

It was so awful!

Something feels very wrong about all this. It feels political to me and I hate politics. I don't know if I have the heart to ever have babies again. I don't think I can go through it again. I feel broken. Putting every single one of my birds in a garbage can almost did me in. But a mom doesn't abandon her young.

This might be my last post.

I hope it helps some of you.

Symptoms of Avian Flu to look for in your ducks and geese:

Weepy eyes
Enlarged black eyes
Glossy eyes (blind eye or cataract)
Lethargy
Loss of Appetite
Crooked Neck
Crying
Confusion/Disorientation
Spinning in Circles
Getting Lost
In Goose Yellow Rim around Eye turns Red
Exhaustion

If you have a large enough property, I'd suggest separately housing your different birds in groups. That might convince the state they don't all need to be killed. But when I told them about the new babies who'd just arrived in the mail, they said I take care of birds, I opened the box, so they all needed to be put down. Period.

Prepare yourselves for that.

They will also be testing flocks in a large radius around my home.

Good luck everyone.

May God protect and watch over your flocks.

I am crying as I read your post, I am so sorry from the bottom of my heart that you have gone through this horrible ordeal & painful loss.
I can't even think of any more words to say, my heart breaks for you.