Trouble on the chicken farm
Iowa is the top egg-producing state in the U.S. Unfortunately, the state found a flock of millions of hens infected with avian flu on Monday. The spread of this bird flu has accelerated concerns over how much the current outbreak will affect the U.S. egg and poultry industry. It’s said to be the worst case so far in a national outbreak.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the H5N2 bird flu virus was found at a farm in northwest Iowa’s Osceola County. About 3.8 million hens will be euthanized there.
Although that is a very large number of birds, Ed Fryar, CEO of Ozark Mountain Poultry in Rogers, Arkansas, says it is actually a small number relative to the overall size of the flock that’s in the U.S.
“The U.S will produce about nine billion brawlers this year,” says Fryar. “It can be really tough on an individual farmer or an individual company, if you lose 10 or 20 or 50 million birds, but you’re still talking way less than one percent of the population.”
Iowa was already among a list of states to have detected bird flu infections – killing over five million turkeys and chickens just this year.
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