Is bird flu here to stay? And, if so, what does that mean for the poultry industry?

Written By Alison Grantham

Since January 2022, beleaguered producers’ number one question has been when this latest outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI or H5N1) will end. More than 2 years in, we ask whether that’s still the right question, or whether H5N1 has become endemic to North America. 

Earlier this year, I was on a call with an egg producer talking out their greenhouse gas emissions. The producer was explaining how their major retailer customer wanted them to report a certain level of reductions every year. They shared that while this might be a challenge under normal conditions, they’d had to depopulate so many flocks due to H5N1 that more than half of their barns were empty. As a result, their energy consumption (and thus Scope 1 and 2 emissions) were way down, well below the climate-motivated reduction target. 

Later in the spring, I visited a turkey producer who shared the ongoing stress of this seemingly never ending outbreak. Their operation had made the strategic decision to stop raising poults more than a decade ago, but now that meant they were dependent on one of only a couple of hatcheries that raise all the turkeys in the United States. Those hatcheries have been repeatedly impacted, throwing all sorts of disruption – not just cost, but basic production and bird availability – into the mix.

What is bird flu and why has it been in the news?

It does not matter what the scheduled topic for a call or site visit is. H5N1 comes up in every single conversation I’ve had with poultry or dairy businesses in 2024. It reminds me of Zoom calls in April 2020 – you could not have one without mentioning COVID. Except, outside of my work calls, H5N1 is still not really a topic of mainstream conversation. Yet, the scale of this outbreak and its evolving scope means it merits broader attention.

H5N1, a strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza , has been wreaking havoc on the poultry industry for over two years now. But this isn't your average outbreak. This one's bigger, longer, and evolving in ways we haven't seen before.

How big is this H5N1 outbreak and how does it compare to previous ones?

Remember the bird flu outbreak of 2014-2015? That one impacted a "mere" 44 million birds. This current outbreak? Over 100 million commercial and backyard birds have been culled, with a whopping 18 million just in the last 3 months.

Outbreaks are particularly disruptive to the layer and poultry industries, or when they impact hatcheries supplying the broiler industry because they must live relatively long lives to reach their productive potential. Laying hens, for example, do not even begin laying eggs until they are 16 weeks old, and are generally expected to lay eggs until they’re 85 to 100 weeks old for producers’ financial models to work well. Likewise, when hatchery stock is destroyed for turkeys or broilers, it can take months or years to restore the supply of poults and chicks. 

USDA-NASS reporting shows that the impact on the turkey industry has been stark: 10% fewer poults were even placed this year compared to last year, a drop primarily attributable to the impact of H5N1 on hatcheries. Some months, following particularly notable hatchery outbreaks, like June 2024, show turkey poult hatchings and placements were just 82% of the prior year. Consider that H5N1 is also impacting turkey grow out facilities, and you can see how much this virus is constraining turkey production. The challenge is more acute due to the consolidation in the turkey industry, where relatively few hatcheries supply the majority of U.S. production. 

USDA-APHIS tracking reveals outbreaks at many sites housing more than a million birds. For example, this summer, the layer facility impacted in Weld, Colorado had to cull more than 1.3 million hens and more than 300,000 pullets or juvenile female chickens that have not yet started laying eggs.birds.Considering these birds had the potential to lay more than 5400 million eggs over the next two years, it is easy to see how HPAI is disrupting the U.S. poultry supply and prices. While the USDA has made some financial resources available (here, here and here) to impacted producers, they do not cover all costs associated with lost livestock and production, causing producers considerable stress and financial strain.

The ongoing bird flu outbreak has been the number one issue disrupting the poultry industry for more than 2 years. Now, it’s infecting dairy cows and people, both on and now off the farm.

It's not just chickens. Turkeys, ducks, geese – wildbirds and a truly mind boggling list of more than 2 dozen species of wild and domesticated mammals, including house cats and dairy cows.  The outbreak has disrupted the entire poultry supply chain, repeatedly impacting everything from egg prices and availability to holiday turkey prices.

This species jumping, particularly out of birds and into mammals, is really the most important development. Nearly 200 dairy herds in 14 states have been affected, raising concerns about milk safety and mammal-to-mammal transmission. Dairy cattle also constitute a considerable potential reservoir for the virus. There are about 10 million dairy cattle in the U.S. (and more than 85 million total cattle). Dairy cattle, like domesticated commercial poultry, also typically live in close proximity to one another, with more than half of U.S. milk sales coming from large operations with more than 1,000 cows and more than a third coming from operations with more than 2,500 cows. 

Unlike poultry, when HPAI outbreaks occur in dairy operations, the cattle are not culled nor do the cows typically die. Instead, they get sick, their milk production typically decreases, but they are allowed to recover. While this is less disruptive to the food supply, this management is also less disruptive to the virus. Essentially, when HPAI made the leap to cattle, it also made the leap to a much better host where it could persist and thus continue to mutate. In epidemiologist speak, the dairy cattle are a viral reservoir, which poses some other risks that were far more remote when birds were the primary hosts. 

Humans are, of course, mammals. So one such risk is the direct public health risk of the virus to people. Though it is important to note here that experts still classify the human health risk to people of H5N1 as low. However, the biggest development in the last month was a case of a human hospitalized in Missouri who had no known exposure to infected animals. 

This is not the first human case, but 13 previously confirmed cases were all in farmworkers, thought to be infected by exposure to infected livestock. It is also important to note here that while this human was hospitalized, they were immunocompromised and had several comorbidities, so their hospitalization is not thought to be characteristic of the typical severity of an H5N1 infection in people. They were also treated with Tamiflu and made a full recovery, so again, experts classify the risk to people as low.

This isn't just an agricultural issue – it's an economic one, and a public health one too. Because the virus has evolved to infect mammals and to be transmitted between them, public health experts are paying close attention. Though the risk is low, they’re urging caution and recommending safe handling for both consumers and those who come into close contact with infected live animals and contaminated milk. 

Avoiding raw milk and properly cooking all poultry are always good practices, but are especially prudent given the prevalence of H5N1 in commercial dairy and poultry. The CDC recommends that farmworkers wear personal protective equipment (PPE), which of course, depends on the availability of it in the first place. 

The equipment is often hot and uncomfortable, particularly in working environments that are typically not air conditioned and high moisture. Like COVID, H5N1 is a respiratory virus, so the PPE we’re talking about is masks and exposure environments include hot, wet milking parlors where there is a lot of liquid splatter, both during milking and cleaning.

When will it end… or will it end? 

For more than 2 years,  impacts of this strain of H5N1 have been increasingly far-reaching. Imagine a conversation with an egg producer about their sustainability goals. Suddenly, their emissions decline drastically because half their barns are empty, thanks to H5N1 appearing and culling required by USDA to receive any sort of financial compensation for the losses. Clearly no one ever would have suggested these tactics for reaching sustainability targets, but disruption-weary poultry producers are starting to look at this evolving HPAI landscape and wonder whether these are the right tactics for the H5N1 of 2024.

To answer, we should first revisit: why was culling the standard management response when H5N1 was detected in a poultry flock?

The primary reason was to prevent the spread of the virus. This is similar to the lockdowns at the beginning of COVID. 

Imagine if lockdowns were still the only management tactic to control COVID 2+ years in? I know I long since would have lost my mind, but it’s basically what we’ve asked of poultry producers: detect H5N1? Slaughter all your birds immediately. 

100 million birds in, it’s time to start asking about some other options. Further, with more than 2 dozen wild and domesticated non-migratory reservoirs in North America, it’s also time to reconsider whether the H5N1 outbreak will end or whether it’s becoming endemic in North America. 

H5N1 is already recognized as endemic or becoming endemic in several other countries including those in southeast and east Asia, Central Asian nations, Europe, as well as Egypt. Endemic means a disease that is always present in a population within a geography. Once a virus or other pathogen reaches endemic status, other management approaches, such as vaccination become much more important. For people, tactics like wastewater monitoring and sample testing for disease surveillance are also important, but given our focus on food and agriculture, we’ll focus on building immunity in livestock, particularly through the vaccine tactic.

Well, where are the vaccines?

The good news is that the USDA-ARS began testing 5 candidate vaccines (p.3) for poultry in 2023. One was publicly developed by the USDA and the other 4 were commercially developed. All showed promising efficacy with 2 doses. There are concerns about the practicality of distribution of these vaccines to commercial flocks, which I can definitely appreciate for short-lived flocks of broiler chickens that typically make it from egg to the slaughter facility in under 40 days. But, for hatchery stock, layers, and turkeys, all of which live for months to years, it’s high time producers had a better option than to pray it doesn’t get to you and slaughter 100% of your livelihood if it does.

The industry is facing immense stress, with producers struggling to rebuild flocks and meet consumer demands. As agriculture and climate leaders, we should expect that H5N1 – much like COVID – has become our “new normal.” By understanding its consequential impact and taking this threat seriously, with a broader array of tactics that include options like vaccination, we can better support the poultry and dairy industries, protect public health, and find a way forward for all of us – farmers, farmworkers, animals, and consumers.

Alison Grantham
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