Final month, Mike Weber acquired the information each poultry farmer fears: His chickens examined optimistic for avian flu.
Following authorities guidelines, Weber’s firm, Dawn Farms, needed to slaughter its total flock of egg-laying hens — 550,000 birds — to stop the illness from infecting different farms in Sonoma County north of San Francisco.
“It’s a trauma. We’re all going through grief as a result of it,” mentioned Weber, standing in an empty hen home. “Petaluma is known as the Egg Basket of the World. It’s devastating to see that egg basket go up in flames.”
A yr after the chicken flu led to record egg prices and widespread shortages, the illness often called extremely pathogenic avian influenza is wreaking havoc in California, which escaped the earlier wave of outbreaks that devastated poultry farms within the Midwest.
The extremely contagious virus has ravaged Sonoma County, the place officers have declared a state of emergency. In the course of the previous two months, practically a dozen industrial farms have needed to destroy greater than 1 million birds to manage the outbreak, dealing an financial blow to farmers, employees and their clients.
Merced County in Central California additionally has been hit arduous, with outbreaks at a number of giant industrial egg-producing farms in current weeks.
Specialists say chicken flu is unfold by geese, geese and different migratory birds. The waterfowl can carry the virus with out getting sick and simply unfold it by means of their droppings to rooster and turkey farms and yard flocks by means of droppings and nasal discharges.
California poultry farms are implementing strict biosecurity measures to curb the unfold of the illness. State Veterinarian Annette Jones urged farmers to maintain their flocks indoors till June, together with natural chickens which can be required to have out of doors entry.
“We still have migration going for another couple of months. So we’ve got to be as vigilant as possible to protect our birds,” mentioned Invoice Mattos, president of the California Poultry Federation.
The lack of native hens led to a spike in egg costs within the San Francisco Bay Space over the vacations earlier than supermarkets and eating places discovered suppliers from outdoors the area.
Whereas chicken flu has been round for many years, the present outbreak of the virus that started in early 2022 has prompted officers to slaughter practically 82 million birds, principally egg-laying chickens, in 47 U.S. states, based on the U.S. Division of Agriculture. Each time the illness is discovered the entire flock is slaughtered to assist restrict the unfold of the virus.
The value of a dozen eggs greater than doubled to $4.82 at its peak in January 2023. Egg costs returned to their regular vary as egg producers constructed up their flocks and outbreaks had been managed. Turkey and rooster costs additionally spiked, partly because of the virus.
“I think this is an existential issue for the commercial poultry industry. The virus is on every continent, except for Australia at this point,” mentioned Maurice Pitesky, a poultry skilled on the College of California, Davis.
Local weather change is growing the danger of outbreaks as altering climate patterns disrupt the migratory patterns of untamed birds, Pitesky mentioned. For instance, distinctive rainfall final yr created new waterfowl habitat all through California, together with areas near poultry farms.
In California, the outbreak has impacted greater than 7 million chickens in about 40 industrial flocks and 24 yard flocks, with a lot of the outbreaks occurring over the previous two months on the North Coast and Central Valley, based on the USDA.
Trade officers are apprehensive in regards to the rising variety of yard chickens that would turn into contaminated and unfold avian flu to industrial farms.
“We have wild birds that are are full of virus. And if you expose your birds to these wild birds, they might get infected and ill,” mentioned Rodrigo Gallardo, a UC Davis researcher who research avian influenza.
Gallardo advises the house owners of backyard chickens to put on clear garments and sneakers to guard their flocks from getting contaminated. If an uncommon variety of chickens die, they need to be examined for avian flu.
Ettamarie Peterson, a retired trainer in Petaluma, has a flock of about 50 chickens that produce eggs she sells from her yard barn for 50 cents every.
“I’m very concerned because this avian flu is transmitted by wild birds, and there’s no way I can stop the wild birds from coming through and leaving the disease behind,” Peterson mentioned. “If your flock has any cases of it, you have to destroy the whole flock.”
Dawn Farms, which was began by Weber’s great-grandparents greater than a century in the past, was contaminated regardless of putting in strict biosecurity measures to guard the flock.
“The virus got to the birds so bad and so quickly you walked in and the birds were just dead,” Weber mentioned. “Heartbreaking doesn’t describe how you feel when you walk in and perfectly healthy young birds have been just laid out.”
After euthanizing greater than half 1,000,000 chickens at Dawn Farms, Weber and his workers spent the Christmas vacation discarding the carcasses. Since then, they’ve been cleansing out and disinfecting the hen homes.
Weber hopes the farm will get approval from federal regulators to deliver chicks again to the farm this spring. Then it could take one other 5 months earlier than the hens are mature sufficient to put eggs.
He feels fortunate that two farms his firm co-owns haven’t been contaminated and are nonetheless producing eggs for his clients. However recovering from the outbreak received’t be straightforward.
“We have a long road ahead,” Weber mentioned. “We’re going to make another run of it and try to keep this family of employees together because they’ve worked so hard to build this into the company that it is.”
