A New Kind of Flu Season

Just as the PED virus has rampaged through the large-scale hog farms of the country, killing 10 million piglets and turning the hog industry upside down in fear of total collapse. Confinement Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), which crowd livestock together in close quarters inside warehouse-like structures, have always struggled with disease issues.

Bacteria have been battled with a reliance on the use of antibiotics. 80% of antibiotics sold in this country go to the livestock industry, primarily for feedlot and other confinement operations. When people or animals live in high density situations, it’s easy for diseases to spread amongst the population. Heavy use of antibiotics to stave off diseases or to increase meat yields from animals has led to the development of deadly bacteria that are resistant to a variety of treatments—resistance that affects over 30,000 American deaths each year from cases like MRSA (antibiotic resistant staph infection).

But viruses are not curable with antibiotics. This is why PEDv has been such a huge issue for the hog industry, which is still scrambling to make a potent vaccine. But this spring, there is a new specter on the horizon. Just this past month, the breaking news has been Avian Flu—a virulent strain from Asia, H5N2. While not currently affecting human health, it’s been devastating for poultry operations in the Midwest.

We first heard about the news in relation to turkey farms in Minnesota. Then it spread to laying hen operations in southern Wisconsin. And this week, it was announced that some turkey barns in Barron County are being affected, with cases as close to this area as Rice Lake. So far, 250 million laying hens, 20% of Wisconsin’s egg production, have been destroyed by this disease.

But the destruction is not entirely from the virus. Once a facility has been found to have a case of avian influenza, the USDA comes in to massacre all of the birds at that facility. The chickens or turkeys are sprayed with a foam to asphyxiate them. The birds are then “composted in their barn” for at least six months before being “spread on the field”—according to a recent article in The Country Today.

“It’s going to be a real wake-up call for the poultry industry,” UW Extension agent Otto Wiegand shared with me the other day over a cup of tea at Farmstead Creamery. “I talked with one guy who has two turkey barns, and he’s holding up and not going anywhere unless he has to run to town for food. He figures that if he gets the virus, he’ll be out of operation for nine months to a year, with no income. It’s pretty scary stuff.

“The tricky part is the laying hen operations, where the birds are all in battery cages and have to be pulled out. They can remove about 10,000 a day, but when there’s hundreds of millions of them, you can imagine the stink and decay. That would be a horrible job.”

The disease is being linked to migratory birds flying up the Mississippi River, though many of the state’s outbreaks have been near the Horicon Marsh area. Typically, bird diseases have been spread through fecal matter, though 800 samples of migratory bird droppings this spring have all come back negative for the highly infectious virus.

“They think it’s coming through the air,” Otto relates. He’d recently been to an extension meeting in Madison and talking with organization leaders about the epidemic. “These poultry barns have huge fans on them, sucking in the fresh air, and they think that’s how the virus is getting in.”

While one family flock has tested positive so far, it would seem that an airborne illness brought by migratory birds would cause poultry with access to the outdoors to be at the highest risk. But with the track record leaning greatly towards the factory farming operations, it makes an interesting case about the conditions in which the confined birds are living. In the turkey barns, there’s hardly enough room for the birds to move about without pushing and shoving. If one bird becomes sick, the others are at great risk of catching the disease due to compromised immune systems from the high-ammonia conditions and overcrowding. And no matter how many fans you have, being in the outdoors offers cleaner air with the added benefit of the sanitizing effect of UV rays from sunshine.

However, small flocks are by no means immune to the effects of this outbreak. If the virus is confirmed in a flock, everyone within a six mile radius goes under quarantine. I asked Otto what this status meant and if quarantined flocks would be at risk for extermination, whether or not the birds tested positive.

“We don’t know how that shakes out yet,” he replied. “But for certain it means the birds won’t be able to move around or out of the quarantine area. It presents a huge problem to track and contain the disease, especially with all the backyard flocks.”

Cold weather and massive migrations of wild fowl exacerbate the spread of avian influenza. Some of the authorities on the disease believe the outbreak will settle down with warming temperatures, only to reoccur this fall as temperatures fall and birds migrate south again. But the devastation to poultry raisers in the Midwest may be beyond any semblance of a quick comeback by then.

For instance, on our farm, we’ve sheltered and raised rare breeds of heritage turkeys for years. Should bird flu or a USDA mandated extermination program strike here, those specific genetics would be irreplaceable. These birds, along with our laying hens and ducks also have an emotional tie for us, beyond their monetary value. Sudden destruction is horrible on any scale—from losing a loved one to the earth quake in Nepal—and the birds and pigs lost to sweeping viruses are more than just numbers. To someone at some point along the food chain, they are lives.

I’m sharing this story with you because, while many are aware of the dog flu attacking the Milwaukee and Green Bay areas, few have heard of the recent avian influenza outbreak. It is paramount for each of us, if we care about sustaining our local farming community, to be extra cautious with regards to disease spread. Cleaning footwear, staying away from poultry operations until this new flu season is passed, and not handling wild birds (including dead ones) without protective gear are good measures to consider. We all get to be good neighbors in this endeavor to help our poultry through these difficult times.

So far, our girls are staying healthy, and we hope we can keep it that way. See you down on the farm sometime.