How worried should I be about H5N1?

[rubyluv2]

Hello,

I am getting chicks in the Spring, and I live in Portland, OR. I will be buying our chicks from BURNS Feed Store, if you're familiar.

How worried should I be about H5N1? What precautions are you taking or should I be taking when getting our chicks? Should we wait a year and see if things settle down?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Probably not at all until it shows up in your state. Where are you located?
I wouldn't change the timing of starting your endeavor unless you have an outbreak nearby. HPAI shows up somewhere most years with the fall migration of waterfowl. It usually goes away as weather warms. Some years are much worse than others. Several years ago it was particularly bad in the Mississippi flyway and the Pacific flyway plus some other locales. Millions of turkey, layers and broilers on commercial farms were depopulated. In cases where it infected commercial barns, there were often small holdings nearby that were also affected.
As for precautions, biosecurity is always important. But if it is in the area, it is almost impossible to safeguard against it unless you leave your birds locked up indoors constantly and change shoes before you walk into the building. It is difficult to prevent wild birds from defecating on your property.
Something to keep in mind is that a small percentage of chickens will be naturally immune. They can be exposed yet not succumb to its ravages.
Due to the economic impact, once the virus is detected in a building, the government requires the extermination of all exposed birds, which means everything on a property.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Best precautions you can take are keeping your flock contained in a fully roofed enclosure that's predator proofed enough to keep wild birds out, and to have chicken only shoes that only get worn into that enclosure. And if you feed wild birds, either stop feeding them or feed them well away from where the flock is housed, though there was some debate if feeding hummingbirds was okay (not sure if anything more definitive came of it).

About 2 years ago there was a number of cases in the Pac NW area. As noted outbreaks seem to be most prevalent when birds are migrating.

 

[Seaslug]

As previously mentioned, I think it is wise to keep H5N1 in mind as one of the many factors that have to be juggled to keep chickens responsibly. But I do not think it is a reason to put off getting chickens, especially because any large culls could hamper your ability to get what you want in the future.

One factor to consider is how important chicken farming is where you live -- my street is only a few miles long and it has two commercial chicken growers on it and dozens of backyard flocks. Considering the wild waterfowl that routinely travels overhead... I know that in the past few years hundreds of thousands of poultry have been culled in the counties surrounding ours.
Biosecurity is important. Where I live it is not unusual to see free ranging chicken flocks co-mingling with cattle, pigs, and dairy cows. It does get worrisome.
I heard just recently on NPR that mice seem to be getting H5N1 frequently. We have a decent white footed mouse population here -- although they may have all come into my house for the winter, so perhaps the chickens do not have to worry about them.
My folks just Skyped from San Diego to say that eggs there regular large eggs there were more than $9.00 a dozen. We have 8 dozen in the fridge!