The Pennsylvania Farm Show welcomes birds for the first time since 2022. While there are no reported commercial or backyard bird flu cases in Pennsylvania, cases are on the rise nationwide, including the first confirmed human death in the United States.
Pennsylvania has no cases of bird flu in commercial or backyard flocks as of Jan. 8.
However, the state Game Commission did report last week that it suspects bird flu caused the deaths of around 200 snow geese in the greater Allentown area.
Gov. Josh Shapiro said his administration is keeping in “good communication with our farmers. From our big farmers…down to our Amish farmers” on ways to cull the virus.
Few birds flocked to Harrisburg for the week-long farm show.
Only a small group of chicks are on display through Jan. 11 behind glass panes and around 60 turkeys were shown on Tuesday, but the return of birds hints at a shift in Pennsylvania’s precautions against the virus.
Whether you call it H5 bird flu, HPAI, or High Pathogenic Avian Influenza, it’s a highly contagious virus that can kill an entire flock within a few days.
Gregory Martin, poultry educator for Penn State Extension, called the virus “lethal” in a Dec. 2023 interview.
“I’ve actually been on farms that, y’know, the birds look fine the day before – and were deathly ill the next day. And they were so fevered, they were hot to touch. They were really fevered. So, this is a very virulent disease for poultry. And so, you don’t really want to see them suffering…it’s like pneumonia in people,” said Martin.
State officials and animal safety experts have been pushing farmers to follow biosecurity measures, like scrubbing one’s shoes and truck wheels, for years.
Capri Stiles-Mikesell, a biosecurity educator with Pennsylvania 4-H and Penn State Extension, taught kids at this year’s farm show how to protect their own animals by designating a line of separation.
“It can be a physical line, or it can just be a line that a farmer would designate, and they would know in their head, ‘I am not going to wear the same boots that I wear whenever I feed my poultry, that I wear whenever I feed my dairy animals,’” said Stiles-Mikesell.
Biosecurity is part of a responsible farmers’ daily routine, she said.
“A lot of people are really starting to have a dedicated pair of footwear whenever they go out and go to their feed store or go, you know, even go out into the public. And then they come back in, and that pair of footwear won't go anywhere on the farm,” said Stiles-Mikesell. “And really, because a particle of dust can hold [bird flu], under the proper conditions for 10 days. 1,000 viable pathogens can live on one part of dust.”
Shapiro told reporters at the show that Pennsylvania’s recent tests on raw milk for bird flu came up clean for all 10,000 samples taken. It’s part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new nationwide milk testing program.
While there are active cases in some parts of the U.S. of bird flu in cattle, Stiles-Mikesell added that the virus is not fatal in cows. Affected cows can be treated and returned to the herd when healthy.
The current bird flu spread
The state Department of Agriculture confirmed the state’s first positive case of HPAI in domestic poultry on Apr. 15, 2022 in a flock of commercial chickens in Lancaster County.
But its history stretches far back into the past. The first case was described in 1878 in Northern Italy.
Chicken farmer Scott Seckler said he first heard of the virus in 1981, and since then, he’s learned how to adapt.
“I've seen it come and go many times. And, you know, I've learned over time that a lot of these things are avoidable,” said Seckler, owner of Bell & Evans, an organic chicken farm out of Fredericksburg.
Seckler, who grew up showing and caring for chickens, cattle and hogs with FFA and 4-H, described himself as a “pretty farmer-ish guy, through and through.” His sprawling display at the farm show boasted of his company’s humane practices and ‘no antibiotics’ promise.
His thoughts on the virus were clear. He has “no sympathy for AI,” he said.
Farmers, he argued, can diminish their animals’ risk of bird flu by treating them well.
“People's dogs don't get sick every time somebody sneezes because the dogs aren't stressed,” Seckler explained. “They maybe sleep next to you, eat good. They sleep when they want…They got good, fresh air. You talk to them a couple times a day…[But other places have] chicken farms with two, 300,000 birds in a barn that tend to be stressed. We have broiler farms that have six, eight, 10 houses. The farmer can't see them all. You can’t talk to them all.”
Seckler said farmers need to learn “the hard way” about the virus and was critical of the HPAI Recovery Reimbursement Grant program for farmers who have lost their flock.
“Better train farmers, you know, clean out the flocks,” offered Seckler, instead of providing financial support to bird flu-impacted farms. “[Teach farmers to] clean out the barns between flocks, clean out the trucks that are coming to pick the chickens up so they're not cross-contaminating.”
Shapiro spoke highly of his administration’s reimbursement program and said the state’s biosecurity measures are effective at limiting the virus’s spread.
“I can't tell you that we're going to be bird flu free forever,” said Shapiro. “God willing, we will be, but I can tell you that we're much further along in the calendar and much further along than in other states, I think, because of the great communication we've had with our farmers and their willingness to adopt these biosecurity measures and work closely with us.”
He and Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding added that the state is financing a fourth lab to be built in Western PA to test for bird flu.
The 2025 Pennsylvania Farm Show ends on Jan. 11.
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