(VitalNews.org) – The U.S. dairy industry has been dealing with a bird flu outbreak that has been reported at multiple farms with reports of humans contracting the disease. Looking at how the poultry industry dealt with the bird flu could help the dairy industry deal with the disease as well. The poultry industry showed how difficult it is to deal with Bird Flu but also how they can slow the disease.
Bird Flu has been seen in the United States before, and the most recent Bird Flu case killed over one hundred million chickens and turkeys. Many solutions have been put in place with farms and coordinated approaches with companies and agriculture officials.
Dairy farmers could potentially try to implement the same sort of plan to eliminate disease and treat animals. It’s called the Bird Flu because it’s commonly found in birds. However, mammals like sea lions and even skunks have contracted the disease, as well as cows and humans. Mammals can get infected by eating an infected bird or being around the virus.
While the Bird Flu will often kill large groups of birds when they are infected, this isn’t the same for larger dairy cows. The flu itself isn’t usually fatal to cows but dairy farms in multiple states have had to put down cows due to the symptoms of the disease not tapering off, and the virus still lingering in their milk.
After multiple outbreaks in the bird industry, egg operators and others who work in the industry have become overly health conscious by making egg workers shower and change into fresh clothes before they go into the barns and then shower again when they are leaving. Some egg operations are using fencing or lasers to stop wild birds from entering the farms and potentially infecting them.
These efforts have helped the most recent outbreak and we can see some of these same efforts put into dairy farms to try to prevent something like this from happening again.
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