When egg prices are high, people hold off on making omelets. When the prices of eggs stay high, and in fact continue to rise due to circumstances like bird flu, people start feeling the pressure on their wallets and begin to take home economics into their own hands. They buy chicks.
Bird flu, H5N1, or Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), is not a sudden, recent phenomenon. There have been incidents of avian influenza around the world since 2020, with the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) keeping track of the cases. In January of 2022, the first HPAI H5N1 infection in wild birds since 2016 was reported by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). February of that same year, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, part of the USDA, confirmed a bird flu outbreak in a commercial flock.
Commercial flocks are birds destined for human consumption – eggs, breast, thighs, whole birds – which are owned by commercial enterprises and typically have operations of 1,000 birds or more. To process eggs in an efficient and cost-saving manner, many commercial entities pack as many chickens in as little space as possible. When it comes to a highly contagious disease, stopping the spread in these conditions is unimaginable.
Avian influenza particularly affects domesticated birds like poultry – chicken, turkeys, ducks – and once infected with the disease, it is extremely rare for these domesticated birds to survive. To prevent the spread of H5N1, the USDA follows three simple steps: first, detect, report, and confirm that a bird has contracted HPAI; then quarantine, “depopulate,” and dispose of the flock; finally, disinfect the poultry area, run tests to ensure the virus is gone, and restock the farm with birds. The flock is “destroyed” within 48 hours of disease detection.
The act of “destroying” birds is not limited to commercial farms. Backyard flocks, pets, animal sanctuaries, all face risk of depopulation if the bird flu is detected. Such was the case at West Place Animal Sanctuary in Tiverton in 2022 when bird flu was first making itself known in the U.S. “We had the first case of avian flu in the state of Rhode Island back in October of 2022,” Patrick Cole, director of animal operations, remembers. “I should say the first reported case.”
West Place Animal Sanctuary is a rescue center and a lifelong home for abused and neglected animals, from sheep, donkeys, pigs, and horses, to dozens of ducks, geese, game birds, and exotic birds like peacocks, pheasants, and partridges. The sanctuary started to take precautions as soon as the first case of avian flu was reported in the U.S., from minimizing volunteers to using personal protective equipment (PPE) like bootie covers for shoes. Despite their safety protocols and biosecurity measures, the virus still snuck in.
The first signs of trouble came when a pair of older chickens, Henny and Penny passed away. The pair were older hens that were abandoned in Jamestown after they had stopped producing eggs. They had survived the abandonment and attacks by dogs and other predators before arriving at West Place Animal Sanctuary. Penny passed away from natural causes during the summer of 2022. Henny passed that October, and given her advanced age, it was thought for a brief time that her death was also due to natural causes.
It was when Dottie, a beloved, healthy, two-year old chicken was found dead overnight that the sanctuary knew there was trouble. “She was acting normal one minute, then gone the next,” Wendy Taylor, the founder and executive director of West Place, recalls. The news of Dottie’s sudden death hit Taylor, Cole, and the other volunteers hard.
Upon discovery of Dottie, they reported the death as a suspected case of avian flu. “West Place follows the laws of the state of Rhode Island,” affirms Taylor. The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) took Dottie’s body for testing, and confirmed the dreaded cause of death: avian flu. Collectively, Cole, Taylor, and the RIDEM believe a wild Canada goose landed on the property – not an uncommon occurrence – and was “shedding” the disease through its saliva, nasal secretions, and feces.
After the report, “the USDA, DOH, and DEM descended upon the sanctuary and euthanized most of the birds on the property,” she remembers. The government organizations were going to euthanize all birds on the property, but Taylor, a lawyer, negotiated the lives of birds coming off the “danger” list and the birds that live in quarantine from the hen flock, like the peacocks and the pheasants. In total, 28 healthy birds were killed. “This is why people don’t report it [the bird flu],” says Cole, “but we felt we had a duty to help educate the public the best we can.”
Seventeen days later, Taylor received a call from the Rhode Island government; the policies surrounding avian flu had changed – quarantine, not mass euthanasia became the standard for some time. “The rules are always in flux,” Taylor objects, “it’s hard to track and keep birds safe. I wish there was more information, and more readily available information.”
Since the tragedy, West Place has doubled down on biosecurity precautions. They have built a new house specifically for game birds, as well as building outside sterile quarantine areas so that the birds can be outside in the sun while not touching anything unsterilized; the quarantine hutches are enclosed, so wild birds like Canada geese cannot come into contact with the sanctuary residents, the grass beneath each hutch is thoroughly cleaned and sterilized, and volunteers wearing PPE literally carry the birds from their indoor roosts to the outside area and back again at night so that they do not touch any suspicious ground.
Other editions to the property include wild bird deterrents. “We’ve done a lot of work to the pond on the property to make it less appealing to wild geese and birds,” says Taylor. The lights that volunteers have strung above the pond make it look perfect for a chic outdoor party, but to geese that fly overhead, the string lights break up their ability to easily land in the water. The new game bird building is located on top of “the grassy land strip” that leads to the pond, dividing a large green space that birds see as an easy landing site.
Taylor and Cole also keep a sharp eye on the weather forecast. A warm, wet winter like this past year’s means a late migration for Canada geese, less carriers of the virus flying over the property, and thus the ability to abstain from a total “lockdown” for feathered West Place residents. “The virus doesn’t thrive in extreme heat or cold,” Cole explains, so on the flip side, a warm wet winter means the virus may not go dormant. “We are hoping for a hot and dry summer for our animals. That would be the only way to ‘end’ the quarantine for now.” In addition to the weather, the team monitors avian flu reports from Rhode Island and Massachusetts, attempting to stay ahead of each wave.
Taylor recommends for other farmers and flock-owners in the community to follow these precautions and RIDEM tips, like not handling wild birds and wearing sterile clothes and shoes when interacting with the domestic flocks.
“Us taking these precautions means we saved our birds lives this time,” Taylor affirms. “Not taking these precautions would be a disservice to the birds we lost,” Cole adds. Still, the extra work stretches the nonprofit’s budget thin. The necessary extra precautions add on unforeseen expenses, like construction costs, which is why Taylor created the Birds of West Place Memorial Fund to help with the team’s continued efforts to combat avian flu.
For four months after the H5N1 tragedy at the sanctuary, West Place could not accept any more birds, despite growing demand for their services. To continue to protect their flock, the sanctuary has implemented stricter protocols in place for the acceptance of any incoming birds, including a fourteen-day quarantine period prior to the birds’ arrival. Since the case in 2022, West Place has taken in “dozens and dozens of birds,” including geese, ducks, quail, partridges, turkeys, chickens, and roosters, Taylor lists off.
But as egg prices continue to dominate mainstream news, Taylor, Cole, and the West Place team brace for people to buy chicks and the onslaught of calls about unwanted or abused roosters and hens that will come after. Even worse, they are bracing themselves for continued waves of the virus. “If they [the people who want cheap eggs and talk about getting hens] are not equipped to prevent avian flu, they’re going to have dead birds,” among other problems, Cole observes. When ordering chicks, about half will become roosters, and many towns have limits on the number of roosters a person can have within the flock. He equates buying chicks for eggs while egg prices are high to the same type of reaction as buying a “pandemic pet.” “No one is talking about the loss of life, or how it puts a massive burden on small, nonprofit sanctuaries like ours,” Cole says passionately.
“Don’t run out and get birds just because the cost of eggs has gone up,” Taylor cautions. Aside from the drastic negative effects Cole discussed, Taylor warns that having birds will cost just as much to adequately feed and house them in the long run. She also cautions that game birds are a “life-long commitment;” hens can live over ten years, and ducks can survive for even longer.
There’s no getting around high egg prices for the foreseeable future. The poultry industry from backyard flocks to commercial farms are being decimated by HPAI. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem, but perhaps one that needs to be reframed: how much is the price of a dozen eggs, and how does it compare to the price of a life?
