Cooperative Extension Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory

There are no US outbreaks of AI at the moment, but the situation in Europe and Asia is troublesome. The world Organization for Animal Health (OIE) keeps a running tally of where/when highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI; H5 and H7 serotypes) occurs. As of now, they list 12 European/Northern Asian countries with current (November 2016) […]

By Anne Lichtenwalner, DVM, PhD, University of Maine Cooperative Extension Winter weather has finally arrived in Maine. Most of us probably have our poultry flocks indoors right now, so we might think that the threat of disease from wild birds is minimal. For now, we still don’t have any poultry cases of avian influenza in […]

By Anne Lichtenwalner, DVM, PhD, University of Maine Cooperative Extension It’s time to review biosecurity again, as the risk of getting avian influenza (AI) (and other diseases) from wild birds may increase this fall. The outbreak of highly pathogenic AI (HPAI) has calmed down, and Maine (and the East coast) escaped so far. After losses […]

By Anne Lichtenwalner, DVM, PhD, University of Maine Cooperative Extension In the news this weekend was the story that highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is now in Arizona … or is it? Apparently a source in Iowa sold gamebird products that were contaminated with HPAI, and these were “traced” to destinations that include Arizona, a […]

By Anne Lichtenwalner, DVM, PhD, University of Maine Cooperative Extension Since late last year, a real problem for poultry producers has arisen in the United States: highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). In late 2014, following a cluster of cases in southwestern Canada, HPAI (contagious bird flu) was isolated from birds in backyard poultry flocks in […]

It’s easy to know whether to worry about highly pathogenic diseases that may blow in with the breeze and may wipe out your flock (either because the disease is quite virulent, or because regulatory agencies need to “stamp out” flocks that have the disease): yes, you should worry. However, the essence of survival in our […]