Orofecal (eating poop) and contaminated water are the most common form of avian influenza transmission between avian species and adjoining marine species.
That’s not specific to #H5N1 or #BirdFlu - it’s a general rule of thumb for avian influenza.
#H5N1 outbreak in cattle farms appears linked to POTUS45 Farm Act legislation changes, allowing the feeding of chicken feces (poultry litter) to other farm animals.
This is a dangerous and irresponsible practice! 🐄🐔 #PublicHealthRisk #FarmPolicyFail
aces.edu/blog/topics/be…
Canadian ranchers complain they lack the same competitive advantage as American ranchers because they must vaccinate their cows AND they cannot feed chicken feces to their cows.
Thankfully their federal government didn’t cave to greedy farmers.
inspection.canada.ca/en/animal-heal…
The reason there were multiple dairy farm outbreaks (same #H5N1 strain) was chicken feces being fed to cows. Ground zero wasn't a dairy farm, it was a poultry farm selling poultry litter.
Step 1:
Migrating birds -> Enter US
Infected bird droppings contaminate mixed farm animal water
Step 2: Adopt mammal receptors
Wild bird poop -> Infects outdoor pigs
Dead piglets -> Fed to sows
Rats or mice around sows -> Fecal contamination of poultry feed
Poultry litter -> Outbreaks in dairy farms
Or this loop occurs several times:
Poultry litter -> Fed to goats/cows
Raw milk -> Consumed by Rats/mice
Rats fecal matter into poultry feed -> Poultry infected
Rinse and repeat
Poultry litter -> Back to goats/cows
Step 3: Large-scale poultry operation
Obtains infected poultry eggs
Incubates the eggs into chickens
Sells the chicken litter across USA
We would be stunned if pigs were not involved somewhere for this reassortment to occur. Feeding piglets to sows would make perfect sense as to why this unique influenza binding is specific to the digestive tract.
A great deal needs to go wrong for this chain of events to take place and unfortunately, POTUS45 made this chain of events possible.
Why are we so concerned about chicken litter?
1 - Nobody at USDA is testing the chicken feces for #H5N1 or admitted that chicken feces is a possible source of #BirdFlu transmission.
2 - We still haven't heard if @USDA have outlawed feeding chicken feces to other ruminants!
@USDA @threadreaderapp unroll please
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