“Cage free” & “free range” producers protect their “girls” by keeping them in jail Think that “cage-free” or “free-range” label on a box of eggs or meat package amounts to more than bull-feathers? Even if it is certified by any of the major farmed product certification organizations? Amid the current global H5N1 high pathogenic avian […]
USDA proposes to cover birds under the Animal Welfare Act––sort of
Disease outbreaks afflicting poultry producers lend regulatory urgency to protecting birds––some birds, anyhow––that 50 years of activism did not WASHINGTON D.C.––The worst outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza on record, ravaging European flocks both wild and domestic since 2020, now killing birds by the million in poultry barns, especially in the upper Midwest, may soon help […]
H5N2 avian flu goes pandemic in U.S. & Canada
3.8 million hens killed in Iowa HARRIS, Iowa––Workers at Sunrise Farms near Harris in Osceola County, northeastern Iowa, on April 22, 2015 scrambled to kill 3.8 million laying hens to try to quell a fast-spreading pandemic of the highly pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza that started in British Columbia, Canada, in December 2014. The National Veterinary […]
High pathogenic avian flu hits U.S. through backyard flocks
Outbreaks throughout the Northwest BELLINGHAM, Washington––Backyard poultry have become an incubator for high pathogenic strains of avian influenza throughout the Pacific Northwest, with recent outbreaks occurring from the Fraser Valley of British Columbia to northern California, and as far east as Idaho. The Oregon Department of Agriculture and the USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection […]
“Stamping out” fails again to stop bird flu in South Korea
Birds throughout the nation may be at risk DAEGU, South Korea––Less than six months after South Korea killed 13.8 million poultry to try to stop the spread of the H5N8 avian flu, cases have reappeared in three central and southern provinces, whetting fears that farmed birds throughout the nation may be at risk. The […]