Egg-stra incentives: Backyard, free-range flocks fare well against avian flu, still face challenges

A highly contagious bird flu virus is barreling its way through the U.S. and has culminated in the largest poultry health disaster this nation has ever seen.

So far in the unprecedented event, the avian flu has resulted in the deaths of some 57 million animals — the poultry industry's largest hit since another major outbreak took the lives of more than 50 million birds in 2014-15.

While disease has been a lesser issue on the High Plains with the region's majority chicken producers raising free-range and backyard flocks, the threat will continue to impact the region economically through higher demand for both chickens and eggs for the foreseeable future.

Inflation has consequently hit both, driving the average cost of a dozen eggs in the U.S. to an all-time high of $5.29 on Jan. 2. Exactly one year prior, the average cost landed around $1.47 per dozen, and a year before that, in 2021, the price of eggs nearly reached its lowest-ever at 76 cents per dozen.

As prices continue to soar, more West Texans are looking to their own backyards, and small-scale local farms are eyeing their options.

"This recent crisis with chickens and eggs impacting the food supply on a larger scale across the country has created a small spike in interest for laying hens," said a representative with Short Trip Farm based in Idalou, which raises a small-scale chicken flock, in addition to Nigerian dwarf goats and other farm goods. "I think the increasing supply chain breakdowns in our food system are showing how dependent we become as a society on large scale operations during the vast majority of our food production.

"Our farm advocates eating, buying, shopping and growing locally and seasonally to offset these recent economic trends," they concluded.

Backyard flocks' resistant to avian flu

In 2014, Tir Bluen — named "feather land" after the owners used Google to translate "all things chicken" from English to Welsh — raised its first tiny flock of chickens. Now, the small farm that sits about halfway between Amarillo and Canyon, raises a variety of livestock for beef, pork and poultry, including a flock of 1,000 chickens.

Expecting to see an increased demand for both chicken and eggs in coming months, farm owner Justin Trammell said he intends to triple his chicken count to 3,000 this year and will also dabble in egg production.

As the avian flu epidemic continues to annihilate entire flocks of wildlife — including about 1,600 snow geese in Colorado, as well as raptors and vultures — and commercial poultry, Trammell said his flock has remained untouched.

Although he does not currently have any chickens on his 11-acre farm, he did throughout the majority of the most recent surge, caused by the H5N1 strain, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says was first identified in Europe in late 2020. (The strain has existed for several decades – first identified in waterfowl in Southern China in 1996, according to the CDC — but has ramped up in recent years.)

Meanwhile, the global population of poultry has multiplied six times — from 5.7 to nearly 36 billion — over the last half-century, according to the Guardian, and the risk of new pathogens emerges primarily among larger herds and flocks of commercial animals as intensive livestock farming became increasingly normalized.

Echoing a similar train of thought, Trammell asserted his backyard flock is far less likely to contract the avian flu than those raised under commercial farming, though the risk is still there.

"Backyard flocks, and flocks that are made up of heritage breeds are going to have a lot more resistance to anything like that," Trammell said. "Production breed birds have a very, very tight genetic code, so they don't have much genetic variance. And all of your backyard flocks ... their genetics vary quite wildly compared to your production chickens, so that inherently gives them (entire flocks) much more resistance and resilience to disease."

Additionally, because production chickens are primarily bred to gain weight quickly and sell within eight to 10 weeks, their survivability rates drop rapidly beyond that, Trammell said.

A greater number of backyard flocks have confirmed cases of avian flu than commercial flocks, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but the number of birds affected is significantly larger for commercial flocks.

In Texas, avian flu has impacted 70 birds in one backyard poultry flock in Lampasas and 1,700 gamebirds from a single commercial flock in Erath, in addition to 150 non-poultry chickens across three separate flocks in Dallas, Denton and Rockwall.

"Those production birds are almost clones of each other. So if thy avian flu, or whatever sickness, kills one of those birds, they will kill an entire flock — none of them stand a chance," Trammell added. "Whereas birds like mine, their genetics vary so wildly that one may get it. But that doesn't even necessarily mean that that one will have bad symptoms, and then there's others that may get it that may not have any symptoms. I may lose one here and there, but it's not not the same at all."

Potential threats

Despite their seemingly high resistance against the deadly avian flu, backyard chickens are not — by any means — invincible with complete immunity to diseases.

In a guide to raising backyard flocks, the CDC points out that salmonella and campylobacter bacterias are actually prevalent among the birds and can live on the bird’s beak, feathers and feet and in their digestive tract.

Typically, neither bacteria causes sickness within the bird but can cause diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps in people as the bacteria spreads to areas around where the birds live and onto a person's clothes or body.

In severe cases, these bacteria can be deadly to humans, including two cases last year which prompted the CDC to publish an investigation notice linking salmonella outbreaks to backyard poultry.

Regardless of how healthy and clean a backyard chicken might look, it's still possibly that it may carry bacteria. The CDC suggests all who come in contact with backyard poultry to be proactive in keeping themselves, their chickens and shared areas clean.

This means owners shouldn't "kiss" or "snuggle them and then touch their face or mouth." And anyone who comes in contact should wash their hands after every step in the process — from touching them or anything in the area where they live and roam to handling food and water to collecting eggs.

Humans should also not eat or drink — or store their food, beverages, and equipment — in areas where poultry live or roam. Coops should be regularly cleaned, and cracked eggs should be tossed.

Young children (who are under 5 years), elderly individuals, and immunocompromised communities should not touch poultry as they are more prone to getting sick from germs like salmonella.

“At the CDC, we want to protect people’s health but we also understand that people have these close relationships with their chickens. We love this animal-human bond,”  Dr. Kathy Benedict, a veterinarian epidemiologist with the CDC, told CNN earlier this week. “There’s just a safe way to do it.”

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Backyard flocks fare well against avian flu Salmonella's still a risk