Posted on 02/20/2022 1:48:02 PM PST by algore
WASHINGTON, February 19, 2022 – The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in a non-commercial backyard flock (non-poultry) in Suffolk County, New York.
Samples from the flock were tested at the Cornell University Animal Health Diagnostic Center, part of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, and confirmed at the APHIS National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa.
APHIS is working closely with state animal health officials in New York on a joint incident response. State officials quarantined the affected premises, and birds on the properties will be depopulated to prevent the spread of the disease. Birds from the flock will not enter the food system.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the recent HPAI detections in birds do not present an immediate public health concern. No human cases of these avian influenza viruses have been detected in the United States. As a reminder, the proper handling and cooking of poultry and eggs to an internal temperature of 165 ˚F kills bacteria and viruses.
As part of existing avian influenza response plans, Federal and State partners are working jointly on additional surveillance and testing in areas around the affected flock. The United States has the strongest AI surveillance program in the world, and USDA is working with its partners to actively look for the disease in commercial poultry operations, live bird markets and in migratory wild bird populations.
Anyone involved with poultry production from the small backyard to the large commercial producer should review their biosecurity activities to assure the health of their birds. APHIS has materials about biosecurity, including videos, checklists, and a toolkit available at https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/animal-disease-information/avian/defend-the-flock-program/dtf-resources/dtf-resources
USDA will report these findings to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) as well as international trading partners. USDA also continues to communicate with trading partners to encourage adherence to OIE standards and minimize trade impacts. OIE trade guidelines call on member countries to not impose bans on the international trade of poultry commodities in response to such notifications in non-poultry.
USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. In the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to safe, healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the Department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, visit www.usda.gov.
They don’t just hate it when we eat steak, they hate it that we eat so many chickens, too.
Cue the “not this shit again” poster.
“birds on the properties will be depopulated”?
Deported?/s
We should put APHIS in charge of securing the southern border. They’ll show the cartels what “depopulated” means.
And?
I remember when the main disease of chickens was pleuro-pneumonia-like organisms (PPLO) and Air-sac.
This is what happens when you have “free range” chickens..they pick the virus up from wild birds.
Jabbed.
A bunch of songbirds hanging around a backyard feeder?
Pigeons?
My experience is that wild birds will not come anywhere close to chickens actually out free-ranging. Except for hawks, and rarely just after sunset, owls. Granted we’ve always had a rooster or 2 or 3, depending on how many hens we had.
However, wild birds WILL gather around feeders, chicken feed on the ground, will get into coops with feeders if the coop has any kind of opening the wild bird can squeeze through (darn small if they are wrens), etc., if the chickens are not nearby. And for whatever reason, especially in bad winter weather, the chickens will tolerate the wild birds in a fenced (chicken wire or chain link) space. Not so much actually in the chicken house, tho’, or, maybe the wild birds just don’t go in there even if they could.
Note that we have a couple part-time outdoors cats, and they contribute considerably to the wild birds not being around the chickens. But, the cats are afraid of the chickens and don’t hang around them closely, much less in the enclosed chicken spaces.
Could be! We don’t have any pigeons out here (moderately rural).
The flocks tested positive in Knox County, Maine, on the Atlantic coast, and Suffolk County, NY – home to the Hamptons.
The virus had already been detected in commercial flocks, infecting turkeys in Indiana, chickens in Kentucky and a mixed-species flock in Virginia.
I was working on a house in Eugene, OR about 20 years ago, and the homeowner had a pigeon that was perching on barge-rafter supports and crapping on the roof, She laid eggs that rolled off the side, too. I caught her a couple of times. The second time, I caged her and brought her home( about 100 miles away). After some time in an aviary, I turned her loose. She hung around for months by herself. I think she finally ended up with a flock one spring. She’d hang around out front, and if a hawk came within 200 yards of the house, she took off. I’d watch her. She flew in great big circles, but always came “home.” I think quite a few rural folks have backyard flocks.
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