As avian influenza, also known as bird flu or avian flu, continues to strike Delaware, many farmers have been forced to "depopulate" their chickens.
Georgie Cartanza, a chicken farmer and the poultry Extension Agent for the University of Delaware's Cooperative Extension program, shared with NBC10 that chickens had to be put down at her farm, and now the farm is under strict quarantine after being hit by the flu.
"We have had nine farms here on Delmarva that have had HPAI that are broilers, including mine," Cartanza shared. "We are cleaning and disinfecting and getting everything ready so it can be swabbed, every farm is swabbed to make sure it is virus free."
Cartanza explains that the flu is caused by migrating waterfowl like geese and ducks. An outbreak can even start if somebody walks into a chicken house with infected goose poop on their boots. Rodents can spread it, too.
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It is a significant financial loss for farmers, and Cartanza was crushed to have to depopulate her chicken farm.
Chicken farms are taking precautions, but experts explain that even if an infected bird somehow made it to your grocery store, it's not a risk to humans as long as you cook it to 165 degrees.
Cartanza told NBC10 that Delaware farms are looking to step up their biosecurity game to prevent potentially infected migrating birds from staying on their property.
The new system simply randomly points green lasers at geese.
'It'll kinda move around, and they'll think it's a predator and say, oh, this isn't a great place to hang out, and we are gonna go somewhere else," explained Cartanza.
Broiler chickens have a life span of about nine weeks, so farms can get back up and running quickly once they are fully cleared of the flu.
Egg layers, on the other hand, live and produce eggs for about 68 weeks. That's why the avian flu has hit the industry so hard and why there has been such prolonged egg storage and price spikes.
Chicken farmers are now spending so much time and money to fight this flu.
"There's certainly more things we will be adopting and implementing on the farm to try to even make our odds a little better next time," Cartanza said.
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