{"id":24176,"date":"2016-01-20T09:04:05","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T17:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/bird-flu-outbreak-156000-chickens-to-be-euthanized\/"},"modified":"2016-01-20T09:04:05","modified_gmt":"2016-01-20T17:04:05","slug":"bird-flu-outbreak-156000-chickens-to-be-euthanized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/bird-flu-outbreak-156000-chickens-to-be-euthanized\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird flu outbreak: 156,000 chickens to be euthanized"},"content":{"rendered":"

INDIANAPOLIS<\/strong> \u2014 Animal health officials investigating a bird flu outbreak in southwest Indiana have ordered 156,000 chickens at one of 10 affected commercial poultry farms to be euthanized, raising the total number of birds to be killed above 400,000.<\/p>\n

The egg-laying chickens were housed at one of the 10 commercial farms where turkeys had been infected with the H7N8 virus and were at a high risk of contracting it themselves, Indiana State Board of Animal Health spokeswoman Denise Derrer said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The H7N8 strain is different than the H5N2 virus that led to the deaths of 48 million birds last summer.<\/p>\n

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the Indiana outbreak has been a test of whether officials are ready for future bird flu outbreaks and shows the need to stay on guard year-round.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a wake-up call. It was a good opportunity to see if we\u2019re responding the way we should and I think we did,\u201d he said Tuesday at renewable fuels summit in Iowa.<\/p>\n

All of the turkey farms where the virus has been found are in Dubois County, Indiana\u2019s top poultry producer, about 70 miles west of Louisville, Kentucky.<\/p>\n

The first infection was confirmed last week at a 60,000-turkey farm with connections to major Indiana-based producer Farbest Farms, which has contract growers in Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky. But the other nine farms contract with several companies, Derrer said, and officials are investigating whether the virus might have been spread by workers with those companies traveling between farms or whether it was wild birds, wind patterns or other methods.<\/p>\n

All of Stephen Sander\u2019s 23,000 turkeys that he was raising on contract for Perdue Farms had to be killed; they\u2019re piled up and composting in three barns. The 57-year-old who\u2019s been raising turkeys for a quarter-century told The Associated Press on Tuesday that losing so many birds has been upsetting but outbreaks are one of the risks livestock farmers take.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrain farmers can have a drought, and it hurts them,\u201d the owner of Tip Top Turkey Farm said. \u201cIt\u2019s the same for any business \u2014 something could happen and you have to go with the flow. But it still hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n

State and federal workers, low-level prison inmates and workers at the farms have been euthanizing more than 245,000 turkeys \u2014 plus the chickens \u2014 to prevent the virus\u2019 spread. They\u2019ve finished the job at seven of the 10 affected farms, Derrer said, and are racing to finish at the three others before a winter storm that could bring several inches of snow arrives overnight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe weather\u2019s going to get worse overnight, with the wet snow coming in, so they\u2019re putting the pedal to metal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cold weather is still posing problems for crews using a suffocating foam to kill the birds, she said, adding that even though water was freezing in hoses, most of the birds have been killed using that foam. Carbon dioxide gas and a device that delivers a fatal head injury are also being used.<\/p>\n

No additional cases of the H7N8 strain have been found in the 6-plus-mile control zone around the first farm, she said Tuesday. Indiana\u2019s state veterinarian has also created a precautionary \u201csurveillance zone\u201d that extends another six miles beyond the control area and officials are testing farms and backyard flocks, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to be really aggressive on testing in that extended area to make sure there\u2019s no virus still floating around out there that\u2019s going to pop up later. We\u2019re trying to do the best we can,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Everyone euthanizing the birds is wearing protective suits, face masks, gloves and plastic booties, Derrer said.<\/p>\n

The state Department of Health and local health officials are monitoring everyone who\u2019s had contact with the birds for 10 days to make sure they don\u2019t develop flu symptoms; the USDA has said no human infections from the viral strain have been detected.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer David Pitt in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Animal health<\/a> officials investigating a bird flu outbreak in southwest Indiana have ordered 156,000 chickens at one of 10 affected commercial poultry farms to be euthanized, raising the total number of birds to be killed above 400,000. The egg-laying chickens were housed at one of the 10 commercial farms where turkeys had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-24176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24176"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=24176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}