Nearly 1 million chickens at a Minnesota poultry farm will be euthanized to help limit the spread of bird flu, officials said Monday.
The federal Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that the virus was found on a farm in Wright County, Minnesota, and in three smaller chicken flocks in South Dakota and Iowa. Whenever the highly contagious avian influenza virus is detected on a farm, all birds are culled to prevent the virus from spreading to other farms.
In addition to the Minnesota case, the USDA said about 26,800 turkeys will be slaughtered at one farm in McPherson County, South Dakota, and nearly 17,000 turkeys will be slaughtered at two farms in Clay County, Iowa.
The egg and poultry industry has been facing an outbreak of bird flu since last year. Nearly 58 million poultry, mostly chickens and turkeys, were culled in 2022 to fight the virus, largely responsible for soaring egg and turkey prices. A Minnesota farm is the first egg producer to detect bird flu this year.
The total number of birds culled in 2023 is far lower than in 2022, after a significant drop in the number of cases detected among wild birds and farmers redoubling efforts to prevent the birds above their farms from having any contact with migrating ducks and geese. Even if Minnesota farms slaughter 940,000 chickens, only about 3.4 million chickens will be slaughtered this year.