Avian flu meetings being held in North Carolina

Jun 10, 2015

Meetings will be held on June 15th, 16th, and 17th

In an effort to prepare themselves should a positive case of highly pathogenic avian flu hits North Carolina, a series of information meetings are being held.

Anyone involved in commercial poultry operations – employees, veterinarians and farm managers are invited to attend the meetings.

The information sessions are scheduled as follows:

Monday, June 15^th at Iredell County Cooperative Extension
Tuesday, June 16^th at Randolph County Cooperative Extension
Wednesday, June 17^th at Duplin County Cooperative Extension

The meetings are scheduled to take place from 10am -2pm. Meetings for small-flock owners will be announced at a later date. The meetings are free to attend and anyone wishing to attend must register.

Currently, North Carolina’s Department of Agriculture reports that the state is free of avian flu and that all poultry farms should be practicing strict biosecurity protocols.

Jennifer Kendrick, the Department of Agriculture’s public information officer told The Charlotte Observer that the state is taking precautions and assuming that avian flu could hit North Carolina at some point.

Avian flu was discovered back in February 2015 on a farm in Minnesota, affecting more than 45 million birds since. Iowa, the largest egg supplier in the United States, has lost more than 27 million birds alone.

Chickens

Some stats about North Carolina’s poultry industry according to the North Carolina Poultry Federation:

The poultry industry is worth about $12.8 billion to the state’s economy
Poultry is the #1 agricultural industry in North Carolina
North Carolina ranks in the top five in both total turkey production and total poultry production in the United States
More than 5,000 farm families produce eggs and poultry in North Carolina

Tell us your thoughts about these avian flu information meetings. Will you attend one? What measures do you take on your farm to keep your birds as healthy as possible?

Video: Treating Sheep For Lice!

We are treating our sheep for lice today at Ewetopia Farms. The ewes and rams have been rubbing and scratching, plus their wool is looking patchy and ragged. Itchy sheep are usually sheep with lice. So, we ran the Suffolk and Dorset breeding groups through the chutes and treated them all. This treatment will have to be done again in two weeks to make sure any eggs that hatched are destroyed too. There was a lot of moving of sheep from pen to pen around the sheep barn but by all the hopping and skipping the sheep were doing, I think they enjoyed the day immensely! We hope you do too!