Rising bird flu cases impact U.S. industry

An Ohio egg farm is slaughtering more than 1.3 million chickens as bird flu continues to take its toll on the industry.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said 1.35 million chickens on farms in Union County, Ohio, will be culled to help limit the spread of the highly contagious virus after one case of infection among the flock was confirmed this week.

The outbreak that began in early 2022 was much less severe this year because fewer cases of the virus were found in the wild birds that spread it. Despite this, 8.1 million poultry have been culled this year to control the spread of the disease, with 5.8 million poultry being culled this month alone, with multiple large laying hen farms affected. That includes 1.2 million chickens on Iowa egg farms and another 940,000 chickens on Minnesota egg farms that had to be euthanized.

Egg farms tend to be much larger than turkey or chicken farms, sometimes containing millions of birds. That’s in large part why Iowa – the nation’s largest egg-producing state – has been hardest hit by the outbreak, with nearly 17.3 million birds dead. Ohio is also the top egg-producing state, but only 5.1 million birds have died from bird flu.

This week, significant cases of bird flu have also been confirmed on farms in Minnesota, Maryland, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Georgia and California. But the largest case was a Maryland chicken farm where 198,200 chickens were slaughtered.

In 2022, approximately 58 million poultry were culled during the outbreak. The highly contagious virus is easily spread by wild birds through feces and nasal secretions.