Loren Bray, a chicken farmer in Minnesota, walked through her farm where nesting turkeys nest in November and discovered several chickens that had died from highly pathogenic avian influenza.
Within a week, he lost almost half of his entire herd.
So when Mr. Bray's turkeys started laying eggs again in the spring, he tried a seemingly unconventional method of prevention. A laser was installed on top of the barn, shining a green beam to ward off wild ducks, owls and other potential carriers of the deadly virus. .
As migratory birds head north for spring, poultry farmers and backyard keepers across the country are bracing for more outbreaks of avian influenza. The latest virus strain has killed only a tiny fraction of the roughly 10 billion chickens, turkeys, ducks and other birds sold each year nationwide, but some like Bray's Poultry farmers are turning to innovative tactics and deploying deterrents to protect their flocks. Drones, air horns, balloons, decoy predators, etc.
These practices come as small farms and even larger operations struggle to fight off the virus, and as a result of fatigue and illness after years of sanitary protocols, lockdowns and debates over vaccinations. It highlights a reluctant acceptance.
Large industrial farms and farms that raise layer hens appear to be the most affected, with two-thirds of the depopulated birds occurring on just 30 farms with over 1 million layer hens. belongs to. Like Blay, businesses in Turkey have also been hard hit, with 350 of the 481 commercial farms with confirmed cases. Dr. Carol Cardona, an avian health expert at the University of Minnesota, said birds are particularly susceptible to infection, and many turkey farms are located within the migratory routes of many wild waterfowl, making them vulnerable to exposure to the virus. Stated.
Infection has a huge impact.
Under federal policy, a single infected bird requires culling or removal of the entire flock, and the carcasses may then be disposed of by composting, burial, incineration, or rendering. Since February 2022, when the deadliest strain to date was first detected in the U.S., the ban has resulted in the deaths of 90 million birds and more than 1,100 affected flocks across the United States. .
Areas that were once home to infected birds must be disinfected and isolated, and repopulating flocks takes time, potentially halting production for months. As a result, the total number of egg-laying hens will decrease by approximately 7 million from 2021 to 2023, resulting in a decrease in the number of eggs produced per year by 1 billion, leading to soaring costs.
Christian Alexandre, 32, who raises egg-laying hens on 300 acres of grassland between coastal redwoods and the Pacific Ocean near Crescent City, Calif., has lost production capacity since avian influenza was detected last year. He said it took him six months to fully recover. 2022.
“The hardest thing for farmers is certainly losing birds, and then losing jobs for your employees and not being able to supply your customers,” he said, adding that he then depopulates and composts the remains. He added that it was traumatic.
Alexandre collects eggs by hand from a mobile shed with no door or floor so the birds have full access to the outdoors. Rather than restocking newly hatched chicks and waiting months for them to grow, he purchased “spent” brown organic hens and hens that had reached their peak egg-laying season. The nearly three-year-old birds lay fewer eggs per day than younger hens, but Alexandre's farm is back in full operation, producing between 10,000 and 12,000 eggs per day. are doing.
To prevent further spread of infection, Alexandre is currently restricting farm tours and thoroughly disinfecting the farm, but he vowed to stick to his beliefs. As president of the American Pastured Poultry Association, he said he is aware of only a small number of cases among the 1,100 farmers who are members. “Are you scared of getting infected again? It's not enough to keep the birds inside,” he said.
Alexandre also tried installing lasers on his farm. But after a while, the starlings began to learn the laser's pattern and were no longer afraid of the lightsaber-like beam.
Craig Duerr, sales manager at Bird Control Group, which makes the laser, acknowledged that deterrence is not foolproof, but said demand increases with each outbreak. He said dairy farmers are now looking to install systems that start at $12,500 each after the disease was detected in cows last month.
Cardona said other safety measures farmers have turned to to ward off potentially deadly carriers are nets, noise machines and inflatable dancers. “Scary men, explosive men,” she said. But she stressed that given the seasonality and evolving nature of the virus, farmers need to regularly increase safety measures.
“It's like sprints or reps. You sprint. Then you rest. Then you sprint again,” Dr. Cardona said. “Use that down time to build resilience and get ready for the next season. And you hope and pray.”
To increase resilience, experts and authorities recommend following certain steps. These include minimizing visitors, thorough cleaning and disinfection, keeping water and food away from wild birds and mammals, and isolating newly purchased birds or birds returning from crowds.
Still, avian influenza can invade even the most tightly closed sheds. As an example, Bray said it has designated parking areas for people who come into contact with the turkeys, a Danish entry system where people can wash and disinfect themselves, and filtered air intakes.
“You can keep ramping up your biosecurity until you're blue in the face. For example, what time is it? Three o'clock? I've already taken my eighth shower today,” says the 30-year-old bird farmer. Bray said.
That constant vigilance is straining the patience of some poultry farmers.
Samantha Gasson, who raises 2,000 broiler chickens and 400 turkeys on a pasture in North Carolina, follows standard procedures to pass the virus on to her lambs and cows. A drone is being sent to repel the vultures surrounding the area.
But after years of worrying about the virus, she has learned how to cope with it compared to the burnout from the pandemic.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, I was definitely one of those people who was wearing a mask and giving everyone 20 feet of distance,” said Gasson, who works for an animal welfare and food safety nonprofit. “And it was the same thing with the flu. For the first year, I really couldn't sleep. Since then, it's been like OK, it's just a part of life.”
Rachel Arestad monitored the spread of bird flu when the latest strain of the virus trapped her 18 chickens inside a pink homemade coop in her backyard in rural Connecticut. The federal infectious disease tracker was scanned almost daily.
Two years have passed, and her wariness has waned. Alestado still regularly checks for the virus in her neighborhood, avoids dog parks with goose droppings, and goes into her garden to scare away foxes that could carry the virus or attack birds. I plan on tying balloons. But her idea of keeping the chickens she considers pets permanently locked down doesn't appeal.
“My hope is that at some point in the future, vaccines will be available for backyard chickens,” she said. “We're not selling our chickens overseas, right? We just want to see a happy, healthy flock.”
Bray, who also serves as president of the Minnesota Turkey Research Promotion Council, announced his resignation when it comes to properly preventing avian influenza.
“You've been lying awake in bed for days and days, how on earth?” he added. “How, what, what should we change? I don't know the answer.”