Headlines like MInnesota Public Radio reporter Mark Steil's Estimated toll of bird flu approaching $650 million (via the West Central Tribune) tell the economic story of the pandemic that hit the state's poultry producers earlier this year.
But a presentation last week to the CSG Midwestern Legislative Conference annual meeting by Dr. William Hartmann, State Veterinarian and Executive Director of the Board of Animal Health takes a look inside the turkey barns.
The swiftness of the disease in bringing down a flock is shocking.
Here's the slideshow:
Board of Animal Health Avian Flu Presentation posted by Rep Rick Hansen
The photos of the workers spraying foam on the sick birds illustrate the euthanizing process, followed by pictures of the cleaning and disinfecting of the barns. Dr. Hartman's maps clearly illustrate the spread and scale of the pandemic.
Stehl reports in Estimated toll of bird flu approaching $650 million:
Bird flu has mysteriously infected flocks at more than 100 Minnesota farms, from the Iowa border nearly to Canada. The state’s main poultry production zone in central Minnesota has been hit the hardest. In Kandiyohi County, the state’s leading turkey producer, the virus devastated about three dozen farms.
The university’s damage estimate includes about $250 million in direct losses to farmers.
“This has affected about a third of chickens that are laying eggs,” Tuck said, “and then (led to) about a 12 percent decrease in the number of turkeys.”
The disease also caused major losses in the poultry processing industry. The Jennie-O Turkey Store plant in Faribault laid off more than 200 workers. Tuck said about 2,500 jobs across the state have been affected by the flu outbreak and the total loss of labor income from avian flu is more than $170 million. . . .
Farms hit with avian flu sustain two economic blows. First, they lose much of their investment in the flock, although the federal government reimburses farmers for birds that are killed to prevent the virus from spreading. The second blow comes from the weeks that have to pass before farms can restart production with new birds.
Dead birds typically are composted, a process that takes about a month. Over a couple more months, the barns and buildings must be cleaned, disinfected and certified as virus-free.
So far, only about a third of the affected farms have been cleared to resume production. When all the losses are added up, the state’s poultry farms struck by bird flu are taking a major financial hit, said Steve Olson, executive director of the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association. . . .
As the article notes, the respite from new cases may be temporary, as the disease may return in the fall:
. . . State and federal health officials are predicting influenza could return in the fall when wild ducks and geese head south. Researchers think they carry the virus and deposit it in the environment in their droppings.
But epidemiologists still have yet to confirm how the virus spread in this year’s outbreaks. . . .
Tests of more than 3,000 samples of waterfowl droppings this spring in Minnesota found not a single instance of the virus.
Read the rest at the WC Tribune.
Photo: Dead and dying turkeys in a barn, via Dr. Hartmann's presentation to Midwest legislators meeting in Bismarck, North Dakota.
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