Farm Horizons
•
April 4
•
Page 19
Producers hatch recovery in the
wake of avian flu outbreak
By Bruce Strand
Correspondent
Minnesota poultry farms are well on their way to recovering from the avian flu epidemic that staggered the
industry here and in neighboring states last summer.
“They have all re-stocked or have started to restock, since about two months ago,” reports Dr. Beth
Thompson of the Minnesota Board of Animal Health
(MBAH), adding that now that farmers know the dangers, they are “really working hard on a daily basis on
bio-security measures to keep the disease out of their
barns, or to keep the disease from walking out of their
barns.”
The virus – officially HPAI, or highly pathogenic
avian influenza – hit Minnesota in the first half of the