Poultry producers are quarantining their animals after avian flu hit Pennsylvania in late December.
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture detected avian flu at a private poultry game farm on Dec. 24. Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) is highly contagious and usually leads to the animal’s death. Infected birds present with pneumonia-like symptoms before death, making euthanasia the most humane option, according to the state Game Commission.
Ian Gregg, the commission’s Wildlife Operations Division Chief, worries that Mahantongo Game Farm may be affected. It’s less than three miles away from where avian flu was found and it’s the commission’s pheasant hunting supply farm.
“If that avian influenza outbreak on the non-Game Commission facility would’ve spread to the facility where we obtain our pheasant chicks from, obviously they would have that same requirement to depopulate their entire flock,” said Gregg.
Mahantongo often keeps around 300,000 day-old chicks at a time. The state’s whole pheasant hunting program would be jeopardized if Mahantongo is affected, according to Gregg.
It’s been two weeks since avian flu was found, and Mahantongo has not shown any signs of the virus. Gregg said the commission’s quarantining their breeding stock.
“It’s being held over winter over at our Loyalsock Game Farm. We also held back some of the pheasants, primarily hens, that we would’ve stocked in the late seasons. And those are being held in our Southwest Game Farm, so we sort of have…our eggs not all in one basket,” said Gregg.
Penn State Extension’s Poultry Educator Gregory Martin said the commission is compartmentalizing their animals. For biosecurity, and especially during an outbreak, producers should keep their birds separate from other birds to limit spreading viruses.
“For example, we did not see birds at the Farm Show this year,” said Martin. “Simply because we didn’t want a whole bunch of people to congregate together for a week and then go back to all different parts of the state. If one bird got sick and spread something within the farm show and then it went out to all the other areas of the state, we could of had a really bad situation.”
Until the virus is fully controlled, Martin recommends for producers to take decisive action. Besides changing clothes and washing their hands before working with their animals, they should limit who comes onto the farm.
“We would restrict, at this point in time, visitors to the farm. And so unless you have a good reason for being there, you shouldn’t be there,” said Gregg. “I’m even suggesting that people reroute deliveries to a neutral area on the farm or actually some other place like a drop box or something at the end of the lane so that the farm doesn’t have any foreign vehicles driving on it.”
Gregg also said that farmers can disinfect the wheels of vehicles on their farm as another precautionary measure.
As of early January, there is one case of avian flu in Pennsylvania. Nearly 100,000 birds were affected.
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