Protecting Poultry & Dairy Farms from Bird Flu Outbreaks Linked to Wild Waterfowl
The current H5N1 influenza, commonly called bird flu or avian influenza, outbreak is impacting the U.S. agriculture system at an unprecedented level, resulting in the loss of millions of poultry and costing producers and consumers billions of dollars. H5N1 is highly transmissible and results in nearly 100% fatality among infected chickens. As a result, once the disease is on-farm producers must move quickly to stop the spread to other flocks by depopulating exposed flocks. Recent occurrences of the virus in dairy cattle and swine have raised additional concerns about the threat to the U.S. food supply.
Data show that 85% of the recent commercial outbreaks in the U.S. were caused by contact with wild birds, not farm-to-farm spread, and waterfowl are the primary reservoir, or host, of H5N1. On-farm operational and physical biosecurity are fundamental to protecting U.S. poultry and dairy; however, outward-facing biosecurity is a novel and underutilized approach to understanding on-farm risk of H5N1.
To inform producers of potential risks to their operations, researchers led by Dr. Maurice Pitesky, associate specialist in cooperative extension at the University of California-Davis and chief executive officer at AgriNerds, are developing a risk model that identifies historic, current and anticipated future location data of roosting waterfowl in close proximity to commercial poultry and dairy operations.