- Author: Pamela S Kan-Rice
The highly contagious avian flu is being spread primarily by migratory birds, putting game birds, and backyard and commercial poultry at risk.
“Poultry owners should take precautions to prevent their birds from contacting waterfowl or the habitat that waterfowl frequent because this strain of avian influenza is highly contagious,” said Maurice Pitesky, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine associate professor of Cooperative Extension.
Infected waterfowl shed the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus in their feces and respiratory secretions, where the virus can remain viable for months in the environment.
“If you can't confine your birds in a coop, focus on good sanitation and reducing contact with waterfowl and their habitat such as agricultural fields and ponds,” he said.
Pitesky urges commercial and backyard chicken owners to monitor their birds for the following symptoms:
- Reduced egg production
- Trouble breathing
- Clear, runny discharge from nose, mouth and eyes
- Lethargy or lack of energy
- Loss of appetite
- Drinking less
- Swollen eyes, head, wattles or combs
- Discolored or bruised comb, wattles or legs
- Sudden death
To prevent exposure to potentially infected waterfowl, Pitesky suggests reassessing and redoubling biosecurity efforts to prevent contact between wild animals and domestic poultry.
Specifically, he recommends keeping birds away from ponds and other open water where they may contact waterfowl, which are the primary reservoir of the disease. To prevent cross-contamination, use clothing and boots that stay on your property and avoid sharing equipment with other bird owners.
A local veterinarian or UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor may have more suggestions to reduce risk.
For more information about protecting birds from avian influenza, visit https://ucanr.edu/sites/poultry/files/225352.pdf.
Unusual or suspicious sick or dead domestic birds should be reported to the California Department of Food and Agriculture Sick Bird Hotline at (866) 922-2473.
Suspicious wild bird deaths can be reported to California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) at https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Laboratories/Wildlife-Health/Monitoring/Mortality-Report.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
A strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza is currently infecting and killing wild birds and domestic birds in at least 29 states across the United States.
A UC Agriculture and Natural Resources poultry expert urges commercial and backyard chicken owners to take precautions.
“When it comes to protecting your flock, there is no treatment for HPAI so the best thing you can do is focus on biosecurity,” said Maurice Pitesky, UC Cooperative Extension poultry specialist in the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis.
“In order to protect our commercial and backyard chickens, it is essential for all of us who own poultry to do our part,” he said.
The current avian influenza outbreak is already considered the worst bird flu outbreak since the 2015 HPAI outbreak when nearly 50 million poultry were euthanized or died.
The HPAI virus is being spread by migrating birds and California is part of the Pacific migratory flyway.
“Waterfowl migrate thousands of miles between wintering and breeding locations and have long been known to be the natural reservoirs for avian influenza viruses, which are associated with high mortality in poultry,” Pitesky explained. “Many of these migrating ducks, geese and swans winter in the relatively warmer climate of California's Central Valley among other locations where they can find appropriate habitat.”
Pitesky recommends preventing chickens and other poultry from exposure to waterfowl and other potential wild bird carriers.
“At the most generic level, that means making sure your birds are separated from any wildlife,” he said. “Whether you have a million-bird farm or just a few backyard chickens, the message is the same: maintain the best biosecurity you can, which includes fencing and make sure you reduce reasons for waterfowl to come near your birds such as spilled feed and ponding of water.
“Our previous research has shown that waterfowl are attracted to both natural and human-made wetlands and lagoons. So, if you live near one of these types of habitats, your biosecurity efforts are even more important.”
The HPAI virus does not currently affect humans. Pitesky said it is important to recognize that avian influenza viruses, like all viruses, can mutate or recombine to form new versions of virus that may affect humans.
For more information on biosecurity and where HPAI has been identified in the U.S., please visit the UC Cooperative Extension poultry website at https://ucanr.edu/sites/poultry/Resources_335/HPAI.
Poultry owners who have questions may reach Pitesky at mepitesky@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Dan Macon
Like many people in the rural areas of the Sierra foothills, my family raises chickens. Our dozen or so laying hens keep us supplied with eggs year-round. And each year, we raise 20-30 Cornish-cross meat chickens, which we butcher ourselves - roast chicken and barbecued chicken are two of our favorite meals!
About 10 days ago, we picked up our first 15 meat birds of the year from a feed store here in Auburn. While we typically expect to lose one or two chicks at this stage, this morning we lost the 13th chick out of the 15 we started with - so we decided to try to learn what's going on. I'd recently read about an avian influenza outbreak in the Midwest and felt that we needed to be responsible chicken owners!
I first called the Sick Bird Hotline at the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) (866/922-2473) and left a message (they called back within an hour). Then I contacted the California Animal Health and Food Safety (CAHFS) Lab at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. From there, I was referred to CDFA's Animal Health Branch Redding District office, where I talked to Dr. Michael Poulos. He told me that backyard chicken producers could get up to two birds examined at the CAHFS lab for just $25 - and that we could overnight the specimen to the lab (as a sheep producer, I have driven animals to the lab in Davis for necropsy - it was nice to know I could put the dead chick on ice and overnight it to Davis - especially with gasoline at over $5 per gallon!)
The lab should have my sample by tomorrow morning. Overnight shipping was around $47 - less than the gas I would have burned driving to Davis and back. And I hope to have some answers by the end of the week. I don't suspect avian influenza, but I do hope to learn what's going on! Stay tuned!
In the meantime, here are some great resources for backyard poultry producers:
UCD Veterinary Medicine Backyard Poultry Website
California Animal Heath & Food Safety Lab System
A final note on the CAHFS lab - we send sheep to the lab whenever we experience an unusual death (for example, if more than two sheep die, or if we experience an unusual level of abortion or newborn lamb losses). We don't always get definitive answers, but we do get useful information. Thanks to information we've received from the lab, we've adjusted our mineral supplementation program to be sure that we are providing adequate selenium - and we always have injectible selenium on hand at lambing. We've also started paying more attention to sources of copper (including irrigation and drinking water in our environment). Having a necropsy performed is an investment in improving our management!
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
To reduce potential exposure to avian influenza, a new interactive website is now available to help California poultry producers, backyard poultry enthusiasts, regulators and risk managers assess the locations of waterfowl relative to poultry farms in the Central Valley.
While not all waterfowl carry avian influenza, the migratory birds are the primary reservoir of the virus that kills chickens, turkeys and other birds and can take an economic toll on the poultry industry. During an outbreak of a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza in 2014-15, nearly 50 million birds had to be killed to contain the disease in the United States.
“Avian influenza is such a devastating disease, in an abundance of caution, we want to limit any interaction between waterfowl and domestic poultry,” said Maurice Pitesky, UC Cooperative Extension poultry specialist.
The California Waterfowl Tracker has been developed by Pitesky at the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis, the University of Delaware, U.S. Geological Survey and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources to show where waterfowl are.
From September through March, geese, ducks and other waterfowl migrate by the millions via the Pacific Flyway and winter in California wetlands, rice and corn fields. At the height of migration, the Central Valley is home to 3 million waterfowl.
The Central Valley is also home to the majority of the state's commercial egg-laying hens, broiler chickens and turkey flocks.
Using the web app to understand when and where waterfowl are feeding and roosting, poultry farm managers and other stakeholders will be able to consider waterfowl in their decision making. They may decide to place pasture-raised poultry in a region of the state that has less wetlands, such as Fresno. If a large number of Canada geese take up residence nearby, poultry owners may decide to move their domestic birds indoors to reduce their exposure until the migrating waterfowl move on.
Using a machine-learning approach developed by Jeff Buler, University of Delaware wildlife ecology professor, the web app produces a waterfowl density map of California's Central Valley that is automatically updated daily with both satellite and weather station information.
“The model doesn't tell us whether waterfowl are carrying avian influenza, but it helps poultry producers and regulators understand where those interfaces could happen,” Pitesky said.
Additional waterfowl habitat and next-generation radar analysis of waterfowl are integrated into the web app. Users can search one or more addresses to anticipate their farms' interaction with waterfowl. Based on the proximity of waterfowl and wild bird monitoring information from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, poultry owners can make biosecurity decisions.
“While the current version of the website is designed for California, the long-term goal is to develop and expand this system for the continental U.S. to promote health and safety of poultry flocks nationally,” Pitesky said.
To use the California Waterfowl Tracker, visit the UC Cooperative Extension Poultry website http://ucanr.edu/sites/poultry. A video of Pitesky demonstrating how to use the web app can be viewed at https://youtu.be/EOO0Q_ggZ9I.
Poultry producers who would like to be notified by UC Cooperative Extension if there is an avian influenza outbreak in their area can sign up on the California Poultry Census page at http://ucanr.edu/sites/poultry/California_Poultry_Census.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
University of California poultry experts are urging poultry owners to examine biosecurity for their flocks after avian influenza was confirmed in commercial chickens in Tennessee by the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service on Sunday (March 5). To protect the birds' health, UC scientists recommend taking measures to prevent poultry from coming into contact with wild birds.
"Based on the initial sequence of the virus, the source of the virus is thought to be waterfowl, said Maurice Pitesky, UC Cooperative Extension poultry specialist in the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis. “This is consistent with the current understanding of how avian influenza spreads and evolves. Specifically, juveniles are infected at breeding locations and travel south in the fall carrying virus. As the waterfowl move southward, they are more likely to interact with other species, increasing the risk of interspecies transmission and formation of new varieties of avian influenza.”
The case in Lincoln County, Tenn., is the first report of highly pathogenic H7 avian influenza in commercial poultry in the United States this year. The flock of 73,500 affected chickens is located within the Mississippi Flyway, one of four North American flyways for migratory birds.
“Lincoln County is located in one of the medium-high risk areas that were identified by our risk map, said Beatriz Martínez López, director of the Center for Animal Disease Modeling and Surveillance in the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis.
“We need to increase awareness of poultry producers to maximize the biosecurity implemented in their operations, particularly in those located in high risk areas, mainly farms that are in close proximity to wetlands or other wild bird feeding and resting areas,” said Martínez López.
Poultry owners can identify biosecurity strengths and weaknesses for their own farm or backyard flock by filling out a free survey designed by Martínez López and other poultry experts. People who raise chickens, quail, ducks, turkeys, geese or other birds anywhere in the United States are invited to use the resource. At the end of the survey, participants receive specific research-based recommendations of biosecurity measures they can apply on their own types of farms. The poultry biosecurity survey is available in English http://bit.ly/2kkMycf and Spanish http://bit.ly/2mjO13G. The survey takes 15 to 20 minutes to complete and will be open until June 1.
If you would like UC Cooperative Extension to notify you if there is an avian influenza outbreak in your area, sign up on the California Poultry Census page: http://ucanr.edu/sites/poultry/California_Poultry_Census.
Owners of backyard chickens who observe illness or increased mortality among their birds should call their veterinarian or the California Department of Food Agriculture sick bird hotline at (866) 922-BIRD (2473).
For more information about raising poultry, visit http://ucanr.edu/sites/poultry.