In a word, no. But let’s explain a bit.
Bird flu – or the H5N1 strain of avian influenza – has been a devastating disease for poultry producers in the US for the past several years, and recently has infected some dairy cattle in six states (including South Dakota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but not in Wisconsin). Despite a single infection in one dairy farm employee, the risks to human health is very, very low, and the risk that pasture-based beef cattle will be infected is also extremely low.
Why?
Bird flu spreads easily among birds – from wild bird species to domesticated poultry – especially in the confined, crowded, high-stress environments most meat chicken and egg laying hens are kept. In fact, our friends at Alden Hills Organic Farm (who happen to be members of our cooperative) aren’t as worried about bird flu as most poultry producers are, for the same reasons we aren’t worried, and don’t think you should be, either: healthy pastures and outdoor living promote healthy, stress-free animals with healthy immune systems. Plus, it is MUCH more difficult for bird flu to infect or be transmitted among cows than it is for chickens and other poultry breeds.
Conventional dairy herds are often kept in the same kinds of confined, high-stress, indoor buildings as conventional chickens, and are therefore much more prone to getting sick, and then spreading that sickness. Our beef cattle and hogs – and Alden Hills chickens – are raised in a way that couldn’t be more different than those conventional operations (factories, in essence), outside on healthy, diverse pasture with plenty of room to roam about and live their best lives. Those practices create healthy animals with robust immune systems.
I think our friend Levi at Alden Hills said it very well in terms of how he thinks about preventing bird flu from infecting his flocks. The same reasoning applies to us, and our grassfed beef cattle and pasture-raised hogs. Know and trust that our farmers do everything in their power to prevent illness by utilizing what nature gave us!
Read Levi’s Story (A member of Wisconsin Grass-fed Beef Cooperative):
The Best Defense for Avian Flu by Levi & Emily Powers owners of Alden Hills Organic Farms
The farm has dried out nicely after the mud bath we dealt with last week. It is always amazing to me how quickly conditions can improve with a little sunshine and wind… right now it looks like we could be grazing as soon as next week. First grazing of the year is always a tricky thing because you want to make sure the grass has enough growth to sustain the cattle buuuut you also just want to have them off hay and grazing pasture!
We also got our first batch of 2,400 chicks in the brooder last week! Jordan (our poultry manager) has been busy keeping them comfortable for their first few days here. Our chicks will spend the first 3 weeks of their life in the brooder while they grow their feathers and mature enough to handle life on pasture.
The big concern again this year is avian flu and what that means for us. There is a far bit of misinformation out there about avian flu but in my experience it is a real concern. The biggest risk is that it’s extremely unpredictable because it’s passed from migrating birds… and since we raise all of our birds on pasture we have very little control over their exposure to wild birds. Avian flu can be devastating to a flock of poultry because it will infect nearly every bird within a day or two.
Now, this is where more of my personal opinions come in so be warned! Even with raising chickens out on pasture we still carry the risk of avian flu. I’ve had conversations with other farmers that think healthier birds (IE pasture-raised) can actually handle exposure to avian flu much better than industrially raised chickens that are raised in barns. I do know that avian flu found inside a chicken barn, where all those chickens are kept in such close proximity, is particularly deadly. I have to believe that chickens with healthy immune systems that are being raised with sunshine and fresh grass HAVE to have a better chance than barn birds.
The other aspect that I believe works for us is also our soil microbiology. Our farm actually has an abnormally high population of wild birds and animals on it… this is due to the biodiversity that is found in the pastures and forests here. Unlike a lot of American farms, we aren’t plowing up fields every year so native habitats are encouraged to grow and mature. So how does our soil work for us when we should be at a higher risk in theory? We have noticed that our soils have become healthy to the point where they can break down manure very quickly. We see that with our cattle and chicken manure every day… you can see manure disappearing into the ground very quickly on our farm… usually within 4-7 days. To me, this is a natural protective layer against Avian flu… droppings from wild birds that may be a threat will be broken down into the soil within days by our soil. I know that we can’t farm without risk of an outbreak, but I also know that we can encourage behaviors and practices that reduce our risks by farming with nature and not against it.