There have been no cases of Highly Pathogenic Avian Flu in the United States
Should we allow Backyard Chickens?
Recently the question of keeping backyard chickens was brought up. There were many points, both pro and con, that were brought into question and I would like to take the time to address those. Some are valid, some are not. I hope that taking an honest look at these concerns will help calm your mind.
CONCERN #1: We will get bird flu if we allow pet hens.
I will be completely honest that this one caught me by surprise. My graduate work is in microbiology (with quite a bit of coursework in pathology) and the first time I heard this I just laughed. However, since then, I have actually heard it from a few other sources, indicating that there are people out there that truly believe it. The media does a great job of making a story that is titillating and sometimes that can create fears that are not rooted in truth. Here is the truth:
- There has never been a case of H5N1 in ANY neighborhood that allows pet hens.
Let’s go one step further:
- There has never been a case of H5N1 in North America
We can go even go farther than that:
- There has never been a case of H5N1 in the Western Hemisphere
The WHO (World Health Organization) started tracking H5N1 in 2003 (click here to see the map). The far majority of the cases have been in China, with the far majority of those being workers dealing with culling chickens. We have had one outbreak of highly pathogenic avian flu, but it never transferred to humans. That one case (H5N2) was in Texas on a commercial farm of 7000 chickens.
Birds do get the flu, just like humans. For it to make humans sick it has to mutate to a form that will infect us. The flu is picky and can only infect the species it is designed for. In a small, healthy, flock this will not happen. The bird that has a low pathogenic flu will get over it and be fine. In a large commercial operation there is the chance that it will mutate. It does this because every time it moves from one thing to the next there is the chance of it changing, or mutating. Each time it replicates it might mess something up and end up different. It needs a large population to infect for this to become a risk because it needs to be able to replicate over and over again (the original host will either die or fight the infection and become immune to it after that so it needs a constant supply of new hosts). It also needs the other species to be in constant contact with means to contract the disease. That is why it usually happens in factory farm workers who are breathing in feces and dealing with dead birds on a minute by minute basis.
You can think of it this way, if your child has the flu and you clean up after they get sick you have to take precautions to not get sick yourself. There is, in fact, a good chance that you will. That flu virus is perfect for a human. If your child has the flu and your dog “cleans” it up while you are tucking your child in bed (eww!) then your dog will not get the flu. The flu virus does not know how to live in your dog. Take it one step further and make the dog’s job “cleaning up” after a group of thousands of humans living in extremely close quarters and all of a sudden this dog is being exposed to the human virus over and over again. The virus might be able to figure out how to live in that dog.
Backyard hens actually fight the chance of H5N1 because it reduces our reliance on factory farms, which, if we get it in the US, that will be where our first outbreak will occur. If you have waterfowl then keep them separate from the chickens as a precaution, but remember that we have not had an outbreak yet. Prevention, not fear.
At this point in time you have a much higher risk of contracting rabies from a neighborhood dog, or Toxoplasmosis from a neighborhood cat than H5N1 from a backyard chicken.
