chickens

well it was bound to happen ! avian influenza in the chicken and turkey houses -- 10 million layers in northwest Iowa plus I dont know how many turkeys -- one outfit has the capacity of 5.5 million birds alone -- layers that is -- spread the manure all over the 4 county area and now its the wildlife that is to blame DDAAAA that is spreading it around bigger is better -- not my rant for the day

I think you have been misinformed Roy, it is the wildlife that is spreading it around, much like we gave the Native Americans small pox. If we still raised chickens the old fashioned way (everyone has 12 hens) this disease would have been a worse catastrophe.

Large producers are doing everything they can to stop the spread. I have 24,000 in my care and I shower up to six times a day just to do the normal chores, my barn is shower in and shower out, I even wear a hair net when I'm in the barn. I have never caught a mouse in the barn and there hasn't been a wild bird in here since the roof was put on.

The AI isn't killing the chickens for the most part, they are being destroyed by the USDA to prevent the spread of AI. The manure has little to do with the spread of the disease:

"Influenza viruses do not persist in the environment outside of a host for long periods of time. The avian influenza virus is extremely susceptible to dehydration, ultraviolet light, and high temperatures. At 70°F, in dry conditions, the avian influenza will die within minutes. Under ideal conditions at room temperatures, human flu viruses can remain infective for about one week. Exposure to sunlight drastically reduces the length of time flu viruses can remain infective. At cold temperatures, in feces, the virus can survive for weeks. If frozen they can remain viable indefinitely. If poultry is cooked to 160°F all PHAI is inactivated."

And look where it all started:

"The origin of the current outbreak of avian influenza can be traced to East/Southeast Asia, home to an estimated six billion domestic birds. More than half of the domestic bird population is in medium- to large-scale intensive poultry holdings where fairly strict hygiene, prevention and containment (biosecurity) measures are in place; however, a sizeable part of the poultry population remains with the smallholder sector run by an estimated 200 million farmers, each keeping 5-15 birds, mainly ducks, chicken, geese, turkeys and quail. Backyard or village poultry is characterised by scavenging birds and open coops, and is exposed to viruses carried by wild birds. Seasonal seeding of influenza viruses into backyard poultry systems by migrating waterfowl allows regular addition of new viruses to the diverse domestic poultry virus pool and may explain some of the geospatial features of regional virus distribution."

Nate

So where did you get your info.

I met a guy in MPLS on Sunday who believed that it was spread by the turkey industry to drive prices up. Guy was impossible to talk reason with.

All conspiracy theorists are hard to deal
with no matter what the subject.

For one thing this was not started by spreading manure. I Live in the bird flu area in Northwest Iowa and the rumers around here are flying around. Monday i heard talk of a turkey site three miles south of me that had broken but there is no suspicious activity around there nore has there been anything about it mentioned in the news. Tonight i heard a rumor that the 11.3 million bird laying site five miles from me broke. I hope its not true because hundreds of jobs will be lost if it is true.

There's nothing worse than people saying things about something they know nothing about. I'm glad some others spoke up too and said its not from the manure. We raise turkeys in Missouri and had a case about 7 miles from us in March. It is very scary what AI can do to a flock and raising turkeys supports my Dad, Mom, me, my wife and our 2 kids so we do all we can to keep disease out of our barns. Sometimes though things happen that you can't prevent. If the farm where that manure was coming from had AI they would have been quarantined and nothing could go in our out for 21 days is how they handled the farm here. I get tired of people complaining about manure. What are we supposed to do with it, we can't spread it on our own farm with out mountains of paperwork, we cant pile it outside of our stack shed with out worry of somebody turning us in, and people like you don't want anyone to spread it so what are we supposed to do with it? Sometimes people need to stop and think about where their food comes from and what it takes to get it there. It doesn't magically appear in the grocery store!!! If some of these people get there way there is no way anyone will want to raise any animals. I'm pretty sure I couldn't take grass and tofu for every meal.

now that we have all the facts -- i stand corrected -