Avian Flu Outbreak! Iowa Egg Farm Faces Grim Reality of Culling 4.2 Million Chickens

In Iowa, a case of the highly dangerous avian flu was discovered at a big egg farm, and the state declared on Tuesday that more than four million chickens will have to be slaughtered as a result of the news.

As a result of the discovery of the disease at a farm in Sioux County, Iowa, crews are currently in the process of killing 4.2 million hens. This is the most recent epidemic in a series of years that has also involved dairy animals. Approximately 1.4 million chickens were put to death after the virus was proven to have been present at an egg farm located west of Minneapolis, Minnesota, the previous week.

Since the outbreak began in 2022, the United States Department of Agriculture reports that a total of 92.34 million birds have been killed all across the world.

The fact that the bird flu has moved to cattle has increased the level of concern around the disease, despite the fact that it has grown relatively frequent among poultry. In the month of May, a diagnosis of bird flu was made for a second dairy farmworker, and the virus was found in both meat and milk. The presence of this disease has been verified on dairy cattle farms in nine different states.

According to officials from the health and agriculture departments, the risk to the general public is still rather minimal. The meat from a single sick dairy cow was not permitted to reach the nation’s food supply, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, and beef is still allowed to be consumed without risk.

There is a greater risk for workers who are exposed to animals that are infected. One man who was working to butcher sick birds on a poultry farm was one of the only three human cases that were identified in the United States. The other two involved dairy workers.