The Avian Plague

[Update Spring 2023. While nobody is going to admit that locking 10,000 chickens up in a building that will asphyxiate them if the fans stop running is demonically stupid, there appears to be some sign that the government is backing away from the policy of euthanizing entire flocks based on a single PCR test — mostly because enough people pointed out how obviously insane this policy is. We hope for some positive change by next year. Maybe?]

Government policy suggests insanity

We are increasing our deposit per chicken to twenty dollars in 2023. This is because of the risk from the Federal Government’s response to Avian Influenza. Avian influenza is not a meaningful health risk to people, only to birds.

Nevertheless, for some unexplained reason (no corporate funding to explain it, likely), respiratory ailments such as avian influenza are dangerous to the profit margins of agribusiness corporations running huge, confined poultry flocks. It appears to be, in practice, U.S. government policy that commercial flocks kept in such close confinement that ventilation systems are required to filter out the aerosolized chicken manure (if they have access to the outdoors some of these birds may be sold as “free range”) could not possibly be a cause of respiratory ailments in said birds. Also, it appears that farmers are being told that it is a good idea to destroy wetlands habitat and other surface water sources on their farms to ensure the farm ecology is not shared with wild birds.

They don’t make insane, dictatorial bureaucracies like they used to

In a disappointingly weak and lackluster attempt to copy the illustrious Mao Zhuxi who, unlike the clownish erasthaipaeds in charge of the U.S. government*, had the knack of putting the “total” into “itarian”, the government (and big ag) blames wild birds for spreading avian influenza, and is particularly concerned that wild birds might breathe the same fresh, open air as domesticated poultry flocks. Fresh air is dangerous! To big ag profits?  

This story is not reminiscent of anything

To determine if a poultry flock is infected with the dreaded avian plague, the government uses a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, which has become the go-to test to detect something that isn’t there, since the PCR test, on its own, has always been and will always be invalid as a tool for diagnosis of any kind and was never intended for such a purpose, as stated explicitly by the man awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of said test.  But if you’re wondering why you aren’t seeing flocks of wild geese dropping out of the sky with the sniffles, but almost all poultry lost from “avian influenza” have been part of huge commercial CAFO flocks, you’re clearly a misinformation spreader, so stop asking such questions and be thankful that you live in a free country.

(There are occasional media reports of nameless “hunters” seeing unexplained dead wild birds. A flock of more than 50 wild turkeys mate and nest on the farm and the surrounding area and hundreds of wild geese and ducks come to the farm every year. If there were anything at all to see, we would know.)

Following any positive test result, regardless of how apparently specious, the typical government response is to immediately destroy all birds in the flock, similar to the typical government response to children in Yemen, wedding parties in Iraq, or democratically-elected leaders in Africa or South America. Note that even if the entire flock were to be infected, the birds could be quarantined, processed, cooked, and eaten in complete safety, if the purpose of government policy was to benefit the public, but this is not allowed. 

Why we’re raising our deposit on chickens

Unlike the corporate CAFO factory farms and their absentee investor owners, we can’t afford to cover the loss of an entire flock of poultry so that we can profit by raising the price on you next time while driving our smaller competitors out of business. Thus, we have increased the deposit amount on bulk chicken pre-orders, which is not refundable in the event we have chickens but are prevented by law or regulatory action from selling them to you.

Do you believe drug companies care about people over profits?

The good news is that while “leaky” avian influenza vaccines have been largely banned in the U.S. and Europe due to the risks and side effects of the vaccines being deemed worse than the disease, international veterinary pharmaceutical conglomerates have for years selflessly pawned off these potentially dangerous vaccines onto politically and economically disadvantaged farmers in the “global South”, and are ready to charitably sell their vaccines in the affluent U.S. and European markets just as soon as government policy creates a sufficient demand.

Let’s Recapitulate

Avian influenza is not significantly harmful to humans but is potentially detrimental to debt-leveraged corporate agriculture confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) poultry business profits. In contrast, healthy birds raised outdoors appear to be less susceptible to the disease. Also, decentralized and distributed small scale outdoor flocks are logically more likely to experience a self-contained outbreak in contrast with huge confined flocks which are served by delivery trucks and machinery going between multiple buildings every day and thus spreading potentially contaminated litter. However, the U.S. government blames migratory wild birds for spreading avian flu, not Big Chicken warehouses full of aerosolized manure and the industrial supply chains which serve them. The solution promoted by the U.S. government is to destroy any chicken flock in which avian influenza is suspected, regardless of how many birds actually have symptoms, and to promote CAFO poultry as the safest way of raising chickens. The net result is the deliberate destruction of small, less capitalized poultry farms and thus decreased competition for the major corporations which fund agribusiness lobbying. As a (very) small producer, we can’t afford to cover the cost of having the government come and kill all our chickens, so we’re raising our deposit per chicken.

* Of course there may be many well-meaning employees of the Government. All of our interactions with such employees have been cordial. Most Federal employees probably mean well and are trying to do the right thing. None of these people has any real power to set policy. Perhaps if the hard working government employees who actually want to do the right thing were put in charge, things would be different.