Arkansas Poultry Industry Braces for Bird Flu

Marvin Childers of the Poultry Federation: “It’s one of the most serious threats to the industry that I know of.”

Many Arkansans are looking skyward, eager to see migrating ducks from the north flying though the state when hunting season opens in November.

Many other Arkansans are looking in the same direction, but with anxiety rather than eagerness.

The ducks bring with them both the potential of hunting enjoyment and bird flu — also known as highly pathogenic avian influenza, the dreaded H5N2 virus. A string of outbreaks this past spring, when migratory birds were flying north, devastated Minnesota and Iowa and even touched briefly in north Arkansas.

“It’s one of the most serious threats to the industry that I know of,” said Marvin Childers, president of the Poultry Federation, which covers Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. “That’s why we’ve been preparing for the fall as the migratory birds go south. I look at the Ducks Unlimited website every day because they have a map that reports where the birds are.”

The outbreaks in the spring hit 15 states and affected more than 48 million birds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Iowa was particularly hammered — 75 farms and more than 31.7 million birds, almost all of them egg-layers.

Iowa was No. 1 in the country in producing eggs but sustained a 40 percent loss of its inventory of hens. Childers said the outbreak in Iowa cost more than 8,000 jobs and had an impact on the economy of more than $1 billion.

The spring outbreaks touched Arkansas in Boone County, where a 40,000-turkey farm was infected in March. Response from local, state and federal agencies was instant, and no other infections were reported. While testing was done on poultry in the surrounding areas, though, there were some held breaths and white knuckles.

Dustan Clark is the poultry veterinarian for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture’s Cooperative Extension Service and associate director of the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science. His job during the Boone County outbreak was to contact hobby growers — people who keep a few chickens in their backyard — within a 6.2-mile radius of the infected farm and alert them of the danger and see if the backyard birds showed signs of infection.

“An uncontained outbreak would be devastating in Arkansas,” Clark said.

Clark said the USDA predicts another potential slew of outbreaks this fall. Prevention is the only solution because there is no vaccine yet, and if a bird becomes infected, the USDA requires the entire flock to be immediately eradicated.

Clark said state agencies and poultry companies have been working in cooperation to spread the word about the coming fall season. It’s all about biosecurity, they say, making sure no trace of the virus breaks through into the flocks’ housing.

That means strict measures have to be carried out, Clark said. The state of Arkansas banned the exhibition of waterfowl at county and state fairs after Sept. 1 because of the concern over bird flu.

All In or All Gone

Childers said the Poultry Federation recently partnered with Georgia on the website AllInAllGone.com. It went live on Oct. 2 and has information on strict biosecurity measures to protect from the bird flu.

“You have to be all in on biosecurity or you run the risk of being all gone,” Childers said. “It is going to require a change in culture, truthfully. Growers have been growing chickens or turkeys for 20 years. They have not been as concerned as they are today about coming out of their house” and then disinfecting themselves.

Clark said some of the biosecurity rules include: Don’t enter a chicken house — or turkey house or hen-laying house — without disinfecting your hands and shoes; don’t wear the same clothes from one farm to the next; don’t go duck hunting.

The last one might cost Ed Fryar some employees, but he doesn’t have hard feelings. Fryar, the CEO of Ozark Mountain Poultry in Rogers, said his company is going full-bore on biosecurity this fall.

Fryar’s goal is to have people ask, “What was all the fuss about?”

“Our goal as a company is to make this like Y2K, and if that’s the case, we’ll be tickled to death,” Fryar said. “We’re either going to make a mistake of being overly cautious and overly prepared, or we’ll be underprepared and not cautious enough. There is a cost associated with each one of those. The cost of not being prepared enough could be devastating. You can’t take the risk of not being prepared enough.”

Clark, who has spent countless hours in meetings and conferences with growers, has been spreading the same word. Prevention is everything.

“It is absolutely better to over-prepare,” Clark said. “If you under-prepare and you have a break, who’s to say you’ll ever have a chance to prepare again?”

High Stakes

The stakes are high this flu season. The poultry industry is vitally important to Arkansas, which ranks among the top 10 states in broilers (chickens raised for meat), turkeys and egg production.

The spring outbreaks ap-peared to target turkey and egg production and spare broilers for the most part, but there is no guarantee the ever-changing H5N2 virus won’t hit broilers hardest the next time. There is just so much about the virus that researchers are still in the dark about.

Awareness of the dark con-sequences for the Arkansas economy is growing should outbreaks of the avian flu sweep through the state’s chicken population.

“Most people don’t understand how big the poultry industry is,” said Childers, who said poultry has a $38 billion impact on the state. “Imagine if we lost 10 percent of our inventory.”

Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale, the country’s largest chicken producer, declined, through a spokesman, to comment on the subject of bird flu, instead referring to the company’s position statement on its website.

In the statement, Tyson said it has been preparing for possible outbreaks since spring, and “all of our poultry operations are in a heightened biosecurity status.”

Tyson said it was giving extra training and guidance to employees and growers who come in contact with live birds on farms.

The Good News

The state escaped the spring outbreaks with just one turkey farm affected, and quick response helped prevent the virus from spreading.

Fryar said he was encouraged by a poultry outfit in Minnesota that was in the heart of a turkey outbreak.

None of the chicken farms was affected because the outfit practiced stringent biosecurity on its farms.

“They had good biosecurity, but I can promise you our biosecurity this fall will be much better than their biosecurity this past spring,” Fryar said.

The anxiety associated with bird flu is because of the dire consequences if it hits. That concern is alleviated somewhat because at least growers and companies have been well informed on how to address an outbreak.

“Biosecurity does work,” Clark said. “Prevention is everything. It is absolutely best to raise your level of biosecurity. Don’t cut corners.”

Avian Influenza in the U.S.

Source: USDA