We shared a Minnesota Reformer article, Minnesota Reformer: Menacing bird flu detected in western Iowa backyard chicken and duck flock, on Friday. The article first appeared in one of the Reformer's sister publications, the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
On Saturday, the Associated Press reported Bird flu detected among mixed species flock in South Dakota:
Federal inspectors have confirmed the presence of bird flu in a commercial mixed species flock in southeastern South Dakota.
Samples from the flock in Charles Mix County, which borders Nebraska, were tested at a national laboratory at South Dakota State University. The property was quarantined and the birds will be killed to prevent spread of the disease, the Agriculture Department said.
Avian influenza is an airborne respiratory virus that spreads easily among chickens through nasal and eye secretions, as well as manure. The virus can spread from flock to flock by wild birds, through contact with infected poultry, by equipment, and on the clothing and shoes of caretakers.
The highly contagious virus was discovered a month ago in a commercial turkey flock in Indiana and was detected earlier this week in a backyard flock of chickens and ducks in western Iowa.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the recent bird flu detections do not present an immediate public health concern. No human cases of these avian influenza viruses have been detected in the United States.
Birds from the South Dakota flock will not enter the food system, the USDA said.
Human cases of avian influenza might happen but our concern is for the poultry industry and American consumers. As we noted in Friday's post:
In Agriculture and Natural Resource committee hearings in the Minnesota House, we've been hearing testimony by staff from the Board of Animal Health, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Natural Resources mention biosecurity in poultry flocks and surveillance of migrating waterfowl and other birds as a highly contagious avian influenza spreads in North America.
This concern reminds farm country of the bird flu outbreak in 2014 and 2015; "2015 outbreak was the largest foreign animal disease outbreak in U.S. history."
We're hoping avian influenza viruses don't reach that level of destruction for this area's chicken, turkey and egg producers.
Photo: A flock of healthy turkeys. Minnesota's turkey industry was hard hit by the last avian influenza outbreak.
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