A bird flu outbreak devastated California’s large poultry industry, forcing the business to kill more than a million chickens and sending egg prices skyrocketing.
Mike Weber, who owns Sunrise Farms in Sonoma County, learned last month that his chickens had contracted the highly contagious virus. According to government regulations, he had to slaughter his entire flock of 550,000 laying hens.
“It’s a trauma. We’re all going to go through grief as a result,” Weber told the Associated Press inside the empty chicken house. “Petaluma is known as the Egg Basket of the World. It was sad to see the egg basket on fire.”
More than a million chickens have been killed in California due to an outbreak of bird flu. AP
Bird flu hit California a year after the disease sent egg prices soaring to record highs nationwide due to a lack of follow-up to the outbreak in the Midwest.
Officials have declared a state of emergency in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, after nearly a dozen commercial farms have killed more than a million birds to contain the outbreak in the past two months, devastating farmers, workers and their customers.
Merced County in Central California has also been hit hard, with outbreaks reported recently at several large commercial egg production farms.
Bird flu is spread by ducks, geese and other migratory birds. Although waterfowl can carry the virus without getting sick, they easily spread the disease to poultry through their feces and nasal discharge, according to experts.
A worker moves crates of eggs at the Sunrise Farms processing plant in Petaluma, California. AP
State Veterinarian Annette Jones is urging farmers to keep their flocks indoors until June – including organic chickens which are required to have outdoor access.
“We still have migration for a few more months. So we have to be as vigilant as possible to protect our birds,” said Bill Mattos, president of the California Poultry Federation.
The outbreak caused egg prices in the Bay Area to rise during the holiday season before eggs could be imported from other parts of the country.
The latest outbreak of the virus began in early 2022 and has prompted officials to slaughter nearly 82 million birds, mostly egg-laying chickens, in 47 US states, according to the US Department of Agriculture. It has spread to every inhabited continent except Australia, experts say.
Ettamarie Peterson holds a chicken on her farm in Petaluma. AP
The price of a dozen eggs more than doubled to $4.82 at its peak in January 2023. It returned to normal as farmers replenished their herds. Turkey and chicken prices also increased.
The outbreak has affected more than 7 million chickens in about 40 commercial flocks and 24 backyard flocks in California, according to the USDA. Most of them happened over the past two months in the North Coast and Central Valley regions of the state.
Ettamarie Peterson keeps 50 chickens that produce eggs that she sells from her backyard coop for 50 cents apiece.
“I’m very concerned that this bird flu is spread by wild birds, and there’s no way I can stop wild birds from coming in and leaving the disease,” Peterson said.
Despite putting strict biosecurity measures in place to protect his chickens, Weber’s flock at Sunrise Farms was infected before Christmas.
“The virus hits the bird really hard and so quickly you go in and the bird dies,” Weber said. “Heartbreaking doesn’t describe how you feel when you walk in and a perfectly healthy young bird has just been laid.”
He said he and his workers have spent the last month cleaning and disinfecting chicken coops.
By Postal Wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
