Avian influenza found in South Carolina

[MasterofNone]

Branch, Saginaw, and Wexford. The MDARD site has the currently complete list. All backyard flocks, as I recall.
Mary

Yikes. We are just about to start building our outdoor run and we get wild turkeys and sandhill cranes passing thru our property constantly. A chill runs down my spine everytime I hear geese flying past.

 

[Folly's place]

Yeah, me too. We have a farm pond, and many wild geese, cranes, and turkeys all around. This year, not so great.
On a positive note, haven't seen any dead or dying.
Mary

 

[DonyaQuick]

It's been almost a month since any reports happened in my state. According to the migration maps, my area is a dead zone for migration activity. I'm not near a body of water and don't have waterfowl on my land, so I'm getting more casual with things since it is exhausting and at some point there has to be a trade-off decision as far as accepted risk vs. stress on the birds and on me. I feel I am now in a lucky safe location.

I'm probably putting on my tin foil hat with this, but this past week I felt like I had a window of opportunity between the quite low HPAI risk in my region while also not seeing any escalation in state restrictions so far (I was worried they might get stricter after the report of the first human case). So I went and got myself a rooster. I had many reasons for doing that, but one of them was to be able to expand my flock should need arise without relying on hatcheries or other external sources. I now feel somewhat better buffered against any elevated state-level restrictions, should such things happen.

My rooster is in quarantine right now. Perhaps ironically, I can be much more proper about the biosecurity for that process than I could with my actual coop because he's in a spare room in the house where I can easily implement many of the recommended practices. Because I have the space and it's indoors, I can do the whole clean/dirty area separation, change footwear, sanitize anything going in and out, and so on. I was pleasantly surprised that it's not as hard as I thought...provided it's indoors with plenty of space. That space and easy area to do it makes such a massive difference to those practices being reasonable or not. I still would have an absolutely awful time trying to do anything similar with my coop outdoors or trying to modify the setup so that I could if I really had to. Something to think about for future coop design and placement I guess.

 

[saysfaa]

... space and easy area to do it makes such a massive difference to those practices being reasonable or not. ...Something to think about for future coop design and placement I guess.

Yes

 

[HeatherKellyB]

Yeah, me too. We have a farm pond, and many wild geese, cranes, and turkeys all around. This year, not so great.
On a positive note, haven't seen any dead or dying.
Mary

That's the important thing

I've been thinking about Avian Influenza a lot lately and I know it's probably not a possibility here in the USA, but I would much rather know how many samples are showing a negative result vs positive than only positive cases. Is the government giving us percentages of testing results? I understand it's widespread and it's an absolutely horrible virus and I DO NOT want it here, but I'm really interested in the negative tests just as much as the positive. I guess I'm just ranting. My apologies

 

[Folly's place]

I certainly hope that there are a lot of negative tests! However, it's really irrelevant when positives are the essential information needed to see locations affected by this virus. It's likely that papers will be written, and more detailed information come available, later.
I'd guess that path labs are VERY busy right now just doing these PMs.
Mary

 

[RoyalChick]

I certainly hope that there are a lot of negative tests! However, it's really irrelevant when positives are the essential information needed to see locations affected by this virus. It's likely that papers will be written, and more detailed information come available, later.
I'd guess that path labs are VERY busy right now just doing these PMs.
Mary

Not totally irrelevant because if a State is not doing many tests then there won't be many positive ones even if the disease is rampant.
I am in New Jersey and it is astonishing how all around us there are positive cases but in New Jersey we only have 21 ducks from Cape May. I know NJ has a bad reputation - but do all the birds avoid it too?
I am beginning to suspect that our lack of positive cases is more to do with a limited testing program than a true reflection of the state of the disease in New Jersey.
I have no evidence for that and I hope the stats are correct, but if I knew how much testing was going on it would put the zero positive cases in some perspective.

 

[Folly's place]

So true!
I do hope that dead birds are being tested, at least. And funding is always involved here; how much $$$ is available for this?
Mary

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I too would like to see negative test results - its useful data to those who know how to use it.

Sadly, I know of no source for that data. For all that its generated in the public interest, with public funding.

 

[Folly's place]

And public funding always has limits...