Articles Tagged: Iowa bird flu

State and federal agriculture officials on Thursday confirmed a new case of the highly transmissible avian influenza in a backyard flock in Dallas County.

With no new cases of bird flu in Iowa since May 2, the state on Friday lifted a ban on live bird exhibitions. That means chickens, ducks, pigeons and a pheasant may return to the Linn County Fair June 22-26.

A case was detected in a commercial turkey flock in Bremer County, the 17th such detection in Iowa this year.

The USDA recommends chickens be moved indoors to protect against the disease. While some are keeping their hens inside, not everyone agrees.

Wild ducks that are prominent carriers of the highly contagious avian influenza are migrating through Iowa in their greatest numbers this month.

The spread of a bird flu that is deadly to poultry raises the grisly question of how farms manage to quickly kill and dispose of millions of chickens and turkeys.

Bird flu has now been confirmed in 12 of Iowa’s 99 counties.

Zoos across North America -- including the one in Des Moines -- are moving their birds indoors and away from people and wildlife as they try to protect them from the highly contagious and potentially deadly bird flu.

This marks the 15th case confirmed this year in Iowa, all of them striking after March 1.

For more than a week, the pelicans have been swimming in and flying around the Iowa River as far south as Terry Trueblood Recreation Area all the way north to the Coralville Lake.

Two more cases of the bird flu were confirmed Sunday in commercial flocks in Western Iowa, bringing to 14 the number of outbreaks so far this year in Iowa.

Free-range chickens may have greater exposure to bird flu than their caged compatriots because the free birds have access to outdoor areas that could be visited by wild birds thought to carry the disease.

This year’s first case was announced March 2, while in 2015 it did not appear in Iowa until April 20. With the disease being spread by wild birds, it could continue throughout the migratory season.

The latest case makes 10 outbreaks recorded this year — and all this month — to strike in Iowa.

The outbreaks in Hamilton and Guthrie Counties impact over 1.5 million birds, bringing the total birds killed in Iowa to 8 million from nine total outbreaks.