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Bird Flu 2022. Not good.

Parliament

By Parliament
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Parliament

Parliament 14371

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We had an outbreak in 2015.  Kills chickens and such on livestock farms.  Folks in the ag community are kinda flaking out.

THESE DAYS, WHEN someone comes to do chores at the Moline Brothers turkey farm in northwest Iowa, they park in a designated lot at the edge of the property. They enter a small building with a single purpose: to cache everything that they brought onto the farm from the outside world. They change into clothes and boots that are reserved for them, exit the far side, get into a farm-owned truck, and drive to the barn where they’ll be working. At the barn, they pull on coveralls, swap boots again, and swish their feet through a tub of disinfectant before they enter the long, sunny building full of cheeping baby poults.

It’s a burden, more than the Molines—Brad, Grant, and their father, John—have ever asked of their employees before. So is telling the guy who drives the single feed truck they allow on the property not to get out of his truck’s cab, and unhooking the bin lids and guiding the long delivery tube themselves. And so is going down the road to another address to fetch UPS and FedEx packages that normally might come to their door. Deliveries aren’t allowed on the farm any more.

Each of those maneuvers shares a single objective: keeping avian influenza away from their birds. The Molines have intimate experience with the virus. When bird flu tore through the Midwest in 2015, creating the largest animal-disease disaster in US history, they lost hundreds of turkeys to the disease overnight and were required to have their entire flock of 56,000 slaughtered. Afterward, they built new barns, imposed new work rules, and tuned up their farm’s defenses. Now, with the pathogen advancing across the US in amounts not seen since 2015, the Molines are strengthening their biosecurity to the highest levels they can manage as independent farmers, and hoping to stave off another disaster.

“Everyone has worked with us really well, because they all went through 2015 too,” Brad Moline said Friday morning, raising his voice over the musical gargling of 4-week-old turkeys burbling around his ankles. “We’re all in this together. No one wants to see that happen again.”

It’s hard to take stock of this, being still in the midst of Covid, but the US is in the grip of a ferocious epidemic—a panzootic, in technical terms—caused by highly pathogenic avian flu. So far, there has been no threat to human health, though bird flu strains have jumped species to sicken humans before. But the harm to farmers and the food supply is already profound; as of Friday, more than 27 million birds, including almost 5 percent of all egg-laying hens in the country, had died or been killed to slow down its spread.

https://www.wired.com/story/a-brutal-wave-of-bird-flu-spotlights-the-need-for-a-poultry-vaccine/

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Royalfan5

Royalfan5 2355

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At least in other bird flu years, it’s ran its course by early June, and the biology is a much quicker turn around for poultry that pigs or cattle. The divot from PRRS in hogs last year will likely hurt more than bird flu, plus cattle numbers are going tighten up a lot over the next two years 

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Royalfan5

Royalfan5 2355

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8 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Why's that?

Because if the cow/calf guy has poor margins and dry weather  like he has the last few years, poor performing cows get made into Arbys roast beef, and you have less cattle on feed because the calf crop gets smaller, and once that cycle gets rolling like it is now, it’s going to take awhile to build numbers back since you get one calf a year, and retaining those heifers isn’t going to yield anymore calves for another year, as opposed to a sow knocking out 20+ piglets a year and hen knocking out a lot of broilers

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Al_4_ISU

Al_4_ISU 12530

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11 minutes ago, Covri said:

Bet you it was a video too, hate their stupid breaking story alerts. I just want weather alerts ffs.

Their weather alerts are useless.  I can't tell you how many times I've gotten an alert that said it was raining or snowing where I was when in fact it was not raining or snowing, but rather sunny skies.

Edited by Al_4_ISU
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Trey3216

Trey3216 15380

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Just now, Al_4_ISU said:

Their weather alerts are useless.  I can't tell you how many times I've gotten an alert that said it was raining where I was when in fact it was not raining, but rather sunny skies.

“A rain shower will begin at 3:42PM.  The rain will be brief, but heavy” 

sounds a lot closer to most of our sex lives than the actual weather

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Covri

Covri 6269

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1 hour ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Their weather alerts are useless.  I can't tell you how many times I've gotten an alert that said it was raining or snowing where I was when in fact it was not raining or snowing, but rather sunny skies.

Still better than every story being a video that doesn’t even load 90% of the time lol.

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 90053

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Posted
2 hours ago, Covri said:

Bet you it was a video too, hate their stupid breaking story alerts. I just want weather alerts ffs.

Warning on Lock Screen of phone: "A Tornado Maybe in Your Area"

*Unlocks screen and opens Weather app*

"Watch this 1 minute ad and then a 5 minute video where we will unveil at the end whether or not a tornado is in your area"

Or something of that nature.

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