The Bird Flu & You

I’ve been asked a couple times if backyard flock owners should be concerned about the avian influenza going around…

The short answer is no, but the long answer is: “It all depends on the environment you’re raising your flock in.”

Now, before I explain my answer, please understand I’m not a vet, nor am I suggesting that I know better than one. This is literally just my opinion…

So, like I said, one of the biggest deciding factors of whether you should be concerned or not is the kind of environment your flock is in. Let’s begin by looking at the hardest hit sector of the poultry industry: the commercial industry.

Commercial Poultry Houses

When looking at the commercial poultry industry, you’re typically dealing with a 36,000 sqft. building housing upwards of 20,000 chickens. All of those chickens are going to produce waste, and, more often than not, they’re confined to this building 100% of the time, probably being fed the cheapest, lowest quality feed possible and never receiving any sunlight for the totality of their lives. This means if one chicken in the barn falls ill, ALL 20,000 are now at risk due to a less than ideal environment. It would be comparable to how diseases seem to spread so quickly in nursing homes, daycares, schools, or places of employment.

So, what happens when avian influenza is found in a barn this size? According to a well-respected source close to me, they will often use a gas of some kind to euthanize all the chickens in the barn. What they will sometimes do after mass euthanasia, is burn the barn and everything in it to the ground to kill off any remnants of the virus that might be left.

So what does all of this mean for you and I, the backyard chicken farmers???

In my opinion, a chicken’s body is similar to a human’s body in that when you put good things into it, it’s going to be healthier, happier and naturally more disease-resistant. The beauty behind raising your own backyard flock is that your risk level for that kind of catastrophic loss is significantly lower. Chickens raised in a backyard who are fed an organic diet and allowed room to forage and scratch instead of being confined to their own feces are not going to be as susceptible to disease as commercial poultry. Backyard flock owners benefit from this because our lives aren’t turned upside down by the ebbs and flows of the chicken industry.

For those who are truly concerned though, you can always try adding oregano into your chickens’ diet. Oregano has amazing anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties and is the only herb that has been studied for possible use in the commercial poultry industry because of its powerful immune-enhancing effects.