A major egg farm in Ohio has been forced to cull over 1.3 million chickens in an effort to contain outbreaks of bird flu.
The news comes as avian influenza continues to take a toll on the industry.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said all 1.35 million chickens on the farm in Ohio’s Union County will be slaughtered to help limit the spread of the highly contagious virus after a case was confirmed in the flock this week.
The outbreak that began in early 2022 has been much less severe this year as fewer cases of the virus are being found among the wild birds that spread it.
But there have still been 8.1 million birds killed this year to help control the spread of the disease.
5.8 million of those have come just this month as several large egg farms have been struck.
That includes 1.2 million birds at one Iowa egg farm and another 940,000 chickens at one Minnesota egg farm that had to be killed.
Egg farms tend to be much larger than turkey or chicken farms.
They sometimes have millions of birds.
That’s a big part of why Iowa — the nation’s largest egg-producing state — has been hit the hardest in this outbreak.
The state has seen nearly 17.3 million birds killed.
Ohio is also one of the top egg-producing states but it has seen only 5.1 million birds killed because of bird flu.
This week, there have also been sizeable bird flu cases confirmed on farms in Minnesota, Maryland, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Georgia, and California.
The highly contagious virus is spread easily by wild birds through droppings and nasal discharges.
Farmers are working hard to keep the virus from infecting their flocks.
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