Disease Control and Avian Flu

You may have heard, our area is again battling Avian Flu in poultry flocks. Dubois County, our home county, is #1 in the state in turkey production.  There are large turkey farms all over this area. 2 weeks ago a local farmer and friend of ours, turkeys contracted the disease. Within a day 100 birds had died, they called in the animal health officials and samples confirmed it was the highly contagious avian flu. They had to euthanize all their turkeys, 27,000 of them. They then use sawdust to compost the turkeys in the barns. Our friend was visibly upset with having to euthanize his flock. The government reimburses for the birds but just the difficulty of having to gas the rest of the flock was traumatic. 

The other area farmers have stepped up biosecurity to prevent the spread.  They think it mostly spreads from migrating birds. As the picture shows, Indiana is directly in the Mississippi migratory flight zone. Ducks & geese are known to have the disease and spread through their droppings. These strands of bird flu are not contagious to humans and cannot be spread through the poultry meat. So there is no risk to humans. Last outbreak was in 2016 and eventually 11 farms were impacted with having to euthanize 400,000 turkeys. 

It brings back memories of when I was 14 years old. Our farms hogs were hit with a disease that wiped out about 25% of the group. It’s a vivid memory of loading the dead hogs out of their pens every day. 

Disease is something a livestock farmer has to take seriously. Our approach has been to work closely with our veterinarian on vaccinations. Then providing lots of space and dry conditions. We also feed probiotics daily to help load the rumen with good bacteria to out compete the bad bacteria.