DES MOINES- Beginning January 1, 2016, the order cancelling all live bird exhibitions at fairs, swap meets, auctions and other public gatherings will be lifted.
Since spring of 2015, 71 turkey and chicken operations and six backyard flocks were affected by the avian flu. More than 31.5 million birds had to be euthanized due to the outbreak.
On May 21st, Iowa’s Secretary of Agriculture banned any public exhibitions from taking place across the state, including at county fairs and the Iowa State Fair. Nearly seven months later, the ban is being lifted.
“Kids can show poultry at fairs, auctions and swap meets and poultry business can reoccur,” said Northey.
There haven’t been any new cases of the avian flu since June.
Northey lifted the last quarantine on an affected site on December 1, declaring Iowa an HPAI free zone. Since then, many if not all of the affected sites have been restocked with new birds but have still kept their strict biosecurity measures in place.
“Even those that never ended up with the disease were nervous, so they changed what they were doing,” said Northey.
Even small backyard flocks, like the one owned by Tony Castelline in the heart of Des Moines were scared of the flu effects.
“Oh yeah, some security measures still had to be taken. You introduce one bad chicken and it’ll take the entire flock,” said Castelline.
Even though he nor his next door neighbor who has poultry, have never lost any chickens, they still remains hopeful but skeptical.
“I know, as a family in general, we were sad there was no poultry displays at all, chickens, turkey or anything else,” said Castelline. “As a matter of fact, we weren’t willing to get any stock unless it was from absolutely from somebody we knew.”
Now all of the bans on Iowa’s poultry have been lifted, Northey says this isn’t the time to break good biosecurity practices. Without knowing the cause of the outbreak, there is a possibility of it returning in the spring again.
Northey added he’s amazed by every poultry farmer’s resiliency and willingness to return to the business.
“Everybody is optimistic. The resiliency to get back into business we’ve seen from Iowans, it’s certainly good to be around folks like that and onto 2016,” said Northey.
All poultry products are still considered safe for the consumer to eat.
The outbreak cost the state $1.2 billion dollars and an estimated 8,500 jobs.
