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Increasing bio-security to fight avian influenza

Avian influenza continues to spread across the Upper Midwest.  Indiana state veterinarian Bret Marsh says Indiana’s poultry farmers are doing what they can to prevent the disease from infecting their flocks.  “As for basic biosecurity features – know who is on and off the operation,” he says.  “If at all possible, if there are outside birds, make sure they don’t have direct exposure to wild waterfowl.  We had some operations in the northwest United States where domestic birds were sharing a pond with wild birds and there was an opportunity for an exchange of that virus.”

Marsh tells Brownfield the disease is devastating to poultry producers.  “A site that is determined to be positive for the virus – we actually depopulate the birds,” he says.  “There’s a process through the USDA to compensate the owner for the loss of those birds.  They have to be depopulated and disposed of and then there’s a testing protocol in the neighborhood that could go on for several weeks to make sure that virus doesn’t exist elsewhere on adjacent properties.”

He says the process can be long, but the Board of Animal Health has reviewed the current state and local protocols in effort to streamline the process and make producers’ downtime as short as possible.