Impact of last year’s bird flu outbreak still being felt

Scientists from the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Dairy Association call it H5N2.

Others call it Avian Influenza or the bird flu.
Poultry farmers in Iowa in the last year have called it an epidemic – in their flocks and their ledger columns.

The virus swept through the Midwest last spring, killing more than 40 million chickens mostly in Iowa, the nation’s No. 1 egg producer, at a cost of more than $200 million in losses, according to the Iowa Poultry Association. Poultry shortages caused egg and chicken prices to skyrocket.

But local and backyard chicken farmers in Mills County, who have largely been untouched by the epidemic saw the largest impact in increased awareness, education and the common conclusion the virus could return this spring.

Connie Albers lives on an acreage west of Mineola. She and her family began raising free-range chickens three years ago. She currently has 35 in her clutch from which she pulls 20-25 eggs daily for personal use and for sale. She’s not overly concerned about the virus but that isn’t stopping her from staying informed.

“I watch my flock and try and keep them as healthy as I can,” she said. “If they do show signs, we’ll cross that bridge when it comes. But I don’t want to confine them either because their eggs are better when they are able to free-range.”

The bird flu is caused by a type of influenza virus that is hosted by birds, but may infect several species of mammals including birds, pigs, horses, seals, whales and of course humans. Identified in Europe more than 100 years ago, it exists worldwide, with wild birds, which are asymptomatic carriers, spreading it via feces and air particulates. New outbreaks are possible in winter and spring as wild birds fly through Iowa during migration.

Last September, the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association hosted an industry symposium on the avian influenza outbreak in the Midwest and reviewed the experiences gained from it. The biggest conclusion focused on further bio-security protocols protecting hen facilities from the “wild bird introductions” and a clear line of separation between personnel, equipment and egg production.

Locally, where small backyards flocks rarely exceed three dozen compared to the millions of hens housed in factory farms, “bio-security protocols” might consist of washing hands and changing clothes after handling chickens.

Lori Murphy and her family have raised chickens on their property north of Glenwood for nearly a decade. Both of the Murphy’s teenaged daughters showed chickens in the Mills County Fair 4-H Show prior to last year’s cancellation of the event due to concerns about the bird flu.

Murphy isn’t overly concerned about a new outbreak but she does take more precautions now when handling her chickens than she did before the outbreak.

“If I am going over to the neighbors I try not to wear the same shoes (I wore around the chickens),” Murphy said. “I have shoes just for wearing in the chicken coop. Chickens are messy. So I just watch them and keep an eye out for anything.”

Last summer, a breakout of a fungal infection at the Murphy property killed a handful of chickens and had her worried the flu had reached her clutch. While it turned out the culprit was just a common digestive disease caused by expired food it did make her more vigilant.

“They stopped laying eggs so I knew something was wrong,” she said. “So I looked into it and that (not laying eggs) is one of the symptoms but I found it was the bad food. I gave them yogurt and garlic and other probiotics and they got better.”

If there is a bright spot to the outbreak and the ensuing panic among chicken farmers, Albers points to that increased awareness as a positive. She had a scare of her own earlier last summer when a couple of her birds got sick and died. After a few phone calls and some research, she learned the birds were egg-bound – a common ailment among hens where the egg is stuck and will not pass through the reproductive system at a normal rate.

“The ones that died were some of our older birds and they lay huge eggs and they can get stuck more often in birds like that,” she said. “So I learned something new. I learned what to look for and how I can keep them from dying from that. When I talked to the vet he told me with the bird flu you see more respiratory problems. It was nice to know the things to look out for and know the difference.”

Murphy said she understood the Mills County Fair’s decision to cancel last  year’s 4-H Poultry show even if it was just a precautionary move. No bird flu outbreaks were ever recorded in Mills County. The fair has said it will host a poultry show this year, barring another outbreak.
“I think they were worried about all the birds being together and spreading it, so they cancelled it,” she said. “A lot of people weren’t real happy. My daughter was pretty upset. She cried. It was the main thing she always did at the fair. There are a couple hundred birds with the chickens and geese at the chicken show. It’s a big deal. But I get why they did it.”

Murphy has tried to stay informed on the flu and its potential danger to her chickens. She has a theory that the free roaming chickens of backyard clutches like hers were largely spared the bird flu because unlike factory chickens they are constantly exposed to the environment and different kinds of food which makes for a more resilient bird.

“In the big operations they don’t get different things and they’re so contained,” she said. “I don’t know how it (the bird flu) gets in but I think their immune systems are shot. Their in an environment that isn’t real healthy and they’re bodies don’t deal with things as well.
“Our chickens are out in the fresh air and eating a variety of things. Bugs, and I give them vegetable scraps and chicken food and stuff from my garden. It’s just like people. If you eat a good diet, your body is healthier so you can fight things off better.”

Albers agreed.

She feels factory farm chickens probably don’t have the worldly immune systems of free range or backyard chickens that are exposed daily to a natural environment.

“It’s the same with children,” Albers said. “Any infant that’s exposed to things seem to be more tolerant to allergies. You let them crawl around on the ground and get a little dirt on them to get them more resistant to germs. These (backyard) chickens get fresh air and are exposed to more things. Even with people in winter, you stay inside and confined and don’t open anything up, the germs are going to incubate. Out in the fresh air, that doesn’t happen.”

This spring and summer’s outbreak may be over, but Iowa’s poultry farmers aren’t out of the woods yet. Risk conditions for another outbreak do persist. The epidemic early last spring certainly subsided with the warmer summer months, but as is the case with the flu in humans, the flu is seasonal. The United States Dairy Association warned recently it is “highly probable” the strain will return as the weather gets colder.

Albers has no plans to do anything different with her flock.
“Personally, I always keep a close eye on their health and sure, because of all this, I think I may keep a little closer eye on their health, she said. “Anyone who wants to keep good, healthy animals would monitor that too.”