Bird flu fears have backyard chicken coop owners on edge

On her picturesque farm near Wheaton, Kimberly Henny is used to having visitors drop by to snap up fresh eggs, honey and vegetables. But as concerns over bird flu ripple across the country, Henny and her family are now accustomed to chasing away uninvited guests — the Canada geese and other migratory birds that like to gather on the golf course next door.

Henny, 44, said she and her husband spot the geese through the window and can only pray they pass by their small-scale “hobby” farm, Henny’s Homestead. She’s worried that geese and other wild waterfowl carrying highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, could infect her free-range chickens and wipe out the flock — and the economic tentpole of her family’s small operation.

“It’s terrifying. Eggs are our number-one business,” Henny said. “But we also have two little kids; we live here on the farm and we also don’t want to get sick.”

For owners of small flocks that range from backyard coops to small egg farms, anxieties are already high over an ongoing avian flu outbreak that some experts predict could worsen as spring approaches and wild birds migrate. But even as disease fears grow, record-high egg prices are spurring people with no experience in raising chickens to start backyard flocks of their own.

HPAI has infected more than 1,550 combined commercial and backyard flocks since it was first confirmed in commercial flocks two years ago. In January, a Louisiana man who was older than 65 and had underlying health conditions was the first known human to die in the outbreak, though the disease is generally considered low-risk for humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A biosecure backyard

The H5 variant of avian influenza first came to the world’s attention in 1997, and scientists have watched for decades as the virus has ebbed, flowed and mutated, infecting humans, cattle and other mammals, according to Carol Cardona, a poultry virologist and professor at the University of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

Infected birds can transmit the virus in respiratory droplets and secretions, while other animals pick up the virus from contaminated sources such as chicken feed, soil, water dishes and cages.

Cardona warns that the current threat level is only likely to rise as spring approaches; chickens spend more time outdoors and wild birds will pack migratory flyways.

Once a single bird is infected, it can be all but impossible to stop the spread in a large commercial flock or a backyard setting, Cardona said.

“(Avian flu) can kill chickens within two days — it’s rapid,” Cardona said. “What do you have in place right now to prevent the spread to the rest of the flock? If there’s nothing there, the rest of the birds will die a painful death with attendant suffering within the next week.”

Henny, the small egg farmer, has relied on her background in nutrition and supply chain industries to enhance the biosecurity at her farm. She’s taken cues from large commercial facilities, washing trucks, making sure anyone near the birds washes their hands before and after contact and sanitizing their work boots.

Cooping her more than 30 chickens might stave off regular predators and buffer the hens from infected wild birds, but they still require time outside. That need, she said will only grow as the days get longer and the weather warms.

“They need to roam,” Henny said. “They can’t be cooped up all the time. They’re almost like children — they’ll peck at each other, which creates its own problems.”

Losing any or all of her flock would be critical to Henny’s operation now that demand for farm eggs is high amid grocery store shortages. In the peak spring and summer months, Henny can collect three to four dozen eggs a day. This year, Henny’s usual one- to two-month wait-list for eggs is already stretching into June.

‘Spiraling’ — or skeptical

Even for flock owners who don’t rely on eggs for income, losing chickens can be costly and emotional, said Libby Durley. Durley, 34, has tended a small flock in her Chicago backyard for nearly three years.

“In terms of how attached I am to them, I’m a big animal lover; I love them as much as I love our indoor pets,” Durley said.

To tamp down on potential avian flu spread, Durley built a new type of feeder that can be easily closed off after she realized her old feeder “fed everything in the neighborhood, including birds and squirrels.”

The new feeder closes off the feed — which can be a vector for avian flu — while Durley dumps out the chickens’ water so that wild birds and other animals can access it.

“The [bird flu] symptoms they tell you to look out for, like less egg production or runny droppings, sometimes that just happens,” Durley said. “It can send you spiraling if you look at the symptoms list.”

In backyard chicken enthusiast groups on Facebook, Durley said, the response to bird flu has been mixed, with some in the community expressing skepticism that the threat is real.

“You see some people comment or post asking what people are doing to keep their flocks safe, and 50 people respond saying (bird flu) is made up, and that the government is out to get you.”

Backyard coops

Durley delights in her birds — even installing a disco ball in their coop — but freely admits having even a handful of hens is labor-intensive.

That has animal rescue advocates like Julia Magnus worried about the surge in interest among people who think a backyard coop is the solution to high egg prices and may be uneducated or indifferent to the tedious parts of managing a flock, like biosecurity.

Magnus, who co-founded the Chicago rooster rescue Roo Crew and contributes to the animal sanctuary resource the Open Sanctuary project, said people motivated to stand up backyard flocks for a private egg supply could not only exacerbate avian flu spread, but overstress rescue operations when people ultimately lose interest in the endeavor.

“When COVID hit, a lot of people got backyard chickens because they thought it was a great idea. And when they got bored of it, we had a huge influx of surrenders,” Magnus said. “For compassionate caregivers — people that have chickens as companions, not producers — this is a 10-alarm fire.”

Shelters and clinics can quickly run out of space for quarantine, and under USDA policies, once an infection has been detected and reported, the entire flock is usually culled.

Cardona, the professor, warns that new hobbyists motivated by high egg prices to start their own coop may get more than they bargained for.

“Raising chickens is a wonderful hobby, but they’re birds that require — and deserve — care. They’re not a machine that you put in your backyard and say ‘now produce eggs,’” Cardona said.

She added that the cost of producing eggs is not cheap: “You’ll spend more on the cost of feed in a backyard operation than you will buying eggs from the store.”

For Durley, keeping watch over her tiny flock in her Chicago backyard during a swirling avian flu outbreak has only exacerbated the reality that the birds are constantly vulnerable to threats.

“Almost everything wants to eat a chicken,” she said.