Common sense keeps backyard chicken flocks safe from bird flu, owners say

[Pathfinder]

Common sense keeps backyard chicken flocks safe from bird flu, owners say

2 hours ago ? ROB SCHULTZ rschultz@madison.com, 608-252-6487(0) Comments

As the highly contagious avian influenza virus continues to wipe out thousands of turkeys and chickens at commercial facilities throughout the Midwest, poultry experts haven?t yet explained why it has minimally affected small flocks that live in people?s backyards or other urban settings.
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While it appears owners of small poultry flocks have heeded the experts? advice, it?s possible that some who have lost small flocks aren?t reporting it to authorities, said state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection spokeswoman Raechelle Cline. She added that owners should take dead poultry to a veterinarian specially trained in poultry medicine. A list can be found at the DATCP website.

?Some owners don?t realize they are supposed to report deaths of their flock to the state ... or they probably know the protocol if your flock has the virus is to depopulate so they just don?t tell,? Cline said. ?There?s not much we can do about that.?

UW-Madison animal sciences professor Mark Cook, an expert on avian health, said it?s essential for everybody involved with poultry to be honest about what they see and do.

He also said it?s important for people everywhere to be on the lookout for sick and dead birds and to report what they see.

?We need all the citizen scientists we can find right now,? Cook said.
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http://journaltimes.com/news/state-...cle_1cfda505-198b-573e-8afc-41f95488ca0e.html

 

[Emily]

While it appears owners of small poultry flocks have heeded the experts’ advice...

It appears that they have done better than that since Dr. Clifford with the USDA has said that CAFO's getting hit with H5N2 appear to be followed experts 's advice. The trade official's theory about hobbyists protecting healthy birds from depopulation is weak. Officials are sampling backyard flocks in quarantine areas and finding nothing. In the early 1980's outbreak, they did that also and would depopulate a whole flock if they got a couple of positive antibody tests even if there were no signs of disease in the flock, and antibody tests can be unreliable due to false positives. Perhaps their testing is more accurate now.

I think the trade official is assuming that all backyard flocks are small and that the owners are extremely emotionally attached to their birds. That just isn't true - some backyard flocks range from a hundred plus to thousands of birds. There is incentive to report flu cases immediately due to the indemnity program. Before that kicked in, a CAFO turkey farmer in MN lost $250,000 due to flu deaths in his flock. The government only pays for birds they kill. The indemnity program could be ceased at any time and flock owners know that.

While backyard flocks can rarely be affected somehow, the virus is not being found in wild birds around the affected farms in the Midwest:

https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/...iowa-minnesota

No high-path findings in Minnesota wild birds

Although officials believe the H5N2 virus was brought to the Midwest by wild birds, a wide-ranging sampling program in Minnesota has failed to find any wild birds infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) so far, according to Michelle Carstensen, PhD, wildlife health program supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
The DNR has been collecting fecal samples from waterfowl within 10 kilometers of outbreak sites in five counties, aiming to gather enough to provide 95% confidence of finding the virus if present in 1% of birds. For control sampling, the agency is also collecting similar numbers at wildlife management areas that are not close to any outbreaks.

I think the researcher quoted in the article posted above said it best:

“I’m surprised. I thought there would be more (backyard deaths) by now,” said Ron Kean, poultry specialist for the UW-Extension.

What is happening is a mystery, not a conspiracy or the results of ignorance among bird fanciers. The same pattern is seen in Ontario.