Looking to protect your flock against bird flu? Here’s what you need to know

CEDAR RAPIDS — When Caden Dorrance was young, he wasn’t saving his allowance money for a Lego set or a new game. Instead, he was saving up to buy his own backyard chickens.

“I’ve always loved birds,” said Dorrance, a sophomore at the University of Iowa, where he’s studying environmental science. “And I’ve always been an avid bird watcher and birder.”

Dorrance got his first flock of six chickens when he was in eighth grade. Now, he has four urban chickens. Their names are Hei Hei, Louise, Big Bird and Esther.

He makes the trip home to Cedar Rapids every few weeks to check on the birds and clean out their coop. When he’s at college his dad takes care of them, giving them fresh water and food. Most recently, Dorrance visited his chickens to winterize their coop.

Although bird flu continues to be a concern in Iowa and across the country — infecting millions of birds — Dorrance said he isn’t concerned his flock will catch avian influenza.

The current strain of bird flu has been a perennial issue in Iowa since March 2022, when it was discovered in a backyard flock of fewer than 50 chickens and ducks in Pottawattamie County in far western Iowa.

Since then, a total of 63 Iowa flocks have been infected, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. About a quarter of those were backyard flocks.

Two of the most recent detections of bird flu in Iowa were in private flocks. They included a flock of about 60 chickens, ducks and geese in Eastern Iowa's Clinton County, and a flock of about 34 chickens and ducks in Monona County, in western Iowa.

The two private flocks represent a tiny percentage of the 6.8 million birds affected during the recent fall migration in Iowa. Two egg-laying commercial sites in Sioux County — each with millions of hens — accounted for most of them.

Protect your flock from bird flu

Guidelines from the USDA recommend owners of backyard flocks prevent the spread of bird flu by doing things like restricting access to their birds, and cleaning their clothes, shoes, equipment, and hands.

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This is advice that Dorrance is putting into practice to keep his chickens safe. He said he keeps a pair of boots that he wears only when cleaning or tending to the chickens and their coop. He also makes sure to wash his hands before and after tending to his chickens to limit any contamination in the coop.

“I go out on hikes and stuff, and that opens a whole world of contaminants when I go outside,” Dorrance said. “So when I go in the backyard, I only wear one pair of shoes.”

Jean Wiedenheft is the director of land stewardship at Indian Creek Nature Center, where she takes care of the center’s chickens on the Etzel Sugar Grove Farm, near Marion.

Wiedenheft used to teach the Nature Center’s backyard chicken course that educates Iowans about how to raise healthy chickens in urban and suburban areas.

“You're probably the most likely person to infect your flock,” she said.

Wiedenheft said the most common way a flock becomes infected is the person tending to the birds introducing the virus on their shoes or coat.

“It is really the manure on people's shoes that's spreading stuff around,” she said. “That would be a leading cause of spreading anything.”

To avoid spreading the flu, Wiedenheft recommends that owners of urban chickens not visit other flocks. It’s also good practice to clean off your shoes or boots before and after visiting a chicken coop.

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Wiedenheft said that keeping chickens away from geese and ducks also is important because they can carry bird flu.

Avian influenza attacks multiple internal organs in chickens, leading to organ failure.

“It often kills chickens within 48 hours,” Wiedenheft said.

Besides washing your boots and coat before going into a chicken coop and not visiting other flocks, Wiedenheft recommends that backyard flock owners keep their chicken coops clean and free from mice and other rodents.

Wiedenheft also recommends that owners keep any chicken food tightly bagged or in a metal drum so other birds and animals can’t access it.

Even before bird flu spread to Iowa, Dorrance said he worked to keep his coop clean and mitigate other animals around the coop.

“We also don't encourage a lot of [other] birds in our backyard, whether that be through a bird feeder, bird homes or bird baths,” Dorrance said. In the past, he said they had feeders and baths, but “in recent years we haven't really put out as many to kind of shoo away a lot of other birds.”

Wiedenheft said cats also can be affected by bird flu. Farmhouse cats are most susceptible since they may try to eat a dead bird and can acquire the flu secondhand.

When one chicken in a flock gets bird flu, Wiedenheft said it is likely that the whole flock will become infected. That’s why entire flocks are culled when bird flu has been confirmed.

Wiedenheft said that if a chicken starts acting unusual, the flock owner should separate the chicken from the rest of the flock.

“If I see a bird acting oddly out there, I'll have a separate little room out there we can put it in to give it food and water, so we can separate a bird right away,” she said. “In a home situation, you might be putting it in your garage.”

Dorrance said it’s important to him to spend time with his chickens so he can easily tell if one is sick or acting different.

Protect yourself from bird flu

As the virus has spread, it’s become an increasing threat to people, especially in the past year after a version of it started infecting cattle.

At least 67 people in the United States — including one person in Iowa — have been infected by the virus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost all of them were in contact with infected cattle or poultry at commercial farms.

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The virus typically causes mild symptoms in humans, but someone in Louisiana recently died after being infected. That person — who is believed to have been exposed to the virus by a backyard flock and wild birds — is the first known to have died from the virus.

The Louisiana Department of Health said the person was older than 65 and had "underlying medical conditions" that contributed to the severity of the infection.

The CDC has issued guidelines about how humans can protect themselves from bird flu. If birds in your flock have the virus, or you suspect they might, the CDC recommends:

Urban chickens in Iowa

A number of Iowa cities — including several in Eastern Iowa — allow residents to keep chickens, as long as they abide by rules set out in ordinances.

Cedar Rapids residents must have a permit from the City of Cedar Rapids to have a backyard chicken flock. Cedar Rapids’ urban chicken ordinance only allows six birds per backyard flock.

For a resident to apply for a backyard flock permit, they must complete the Indian Creek Nature Center’s urban chicken course. Wiedenheft said the course is offered multiple times per year and can be completed in one day.

Other Cedar Rapids requirements include:

“Applicants need to demonstrate they have completed a course on keeping chickens and provide a site sketch showing the location for the birds to be kept that meets the Zoning Code requirements. They need to renew their permits annually,” City of Cedar Rapids Zoning Administrator Seth Gunnerson said The Gazette in an email.

He said urban chicken permits can be revoked under the City’s Zoning Code provision, but he is not aware of “any such situations.”

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com and jared.strong@thegazette.com