well the avian flu is up to 79 farms as of today(4/18/02). it has officially left the shenandoah valley in VA where the virus has been concentrated. it is now over the blue ridge mountains in green county?? i think. it is a WEAK strain of the virus, but it is rapidly spreading and no one knows why. so far this has done more damage (infected 2 million birds) in only a matter of weeks than the damage that was done in the 80's in 6 months. commercial poultry farms seem to be getting hit hardest, obviously because their chickens are in close quarters so it spreads rapidly among them. but why it is traveling so fast and now so far despite biosecurity measures remains a mystery. the department of agriculture is hoping that the current hot weather on the east coast will help slow the virus as it favors damp and cold conditions.

-- C (punk_chicadee@yahoo.com), April 18, 2002

Answers

Avian flu has been around forever,we had it back in the 60's.The laying hens would drop off in egg production for about 5 to 7 days and then they were back to normal,it seemed to affect them much like a common cold affects humans.Its only a big deal now that the chicken and turkey 'factory farms' can't keep their production times going and of course when factory farm guys yell 'jump' the VA Dept of Agriculture always says "how high?'.And you can bet the VA Dept of Ag won't blame the outbreak on anything the facory farms are doing like over crowding ,unbalanced diets and lack of good old fashioned sunshine on the chickens and turkeys.

-- Gary (burnett_gary@msn.com), April 19, 2002.

AI showed up in live bird markets in NJ, and NY last week. The USDA paid over a hundred live bird markets in NY, NJ, RI, CT, and PA to clean. News reports are calling it a chicken holiday.

-- Darren (df1@infi.net), April 21, 2002.