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Special Report: Avian Flu Is Devastating Dairies In California's Central Valley
Landon Fernandes has heard the number of Central Valley dairies with cows infected with highly pathogenic avian flu may have surpassed 100. His own dairy got hit by the disease and he's working full time to keep his cows hydrated, fed, and healthy.
The avian flu has fully hit the Central San Joaquin Valley and is moving north, said Anja Raudabaugh, CEO of Western United Dairies. Any dairies not being observed or under quarantine orders are taking exhaustive precautionary measures.
"The first day on your farm you might see a handful of sick cows," said Fernandes, a Tulare County dairyman. "The next day it's maybe a dozen or two dozen sick cows. There's a ramp-up period until about day seven to 10 where you reach your peak. I've talked to some dairy farmers that have had up to a third of their herd infected. That's when you're treating hundreds if not thousands of cows a day."
The avian flu has fully hit the Central San Joaquin Valley and is moving north, said Anja Raudabaugh, CEO of Western United Dairies. Any dairies not being observed or under quarantine orders are taking exhaustive precautionary measures.
Farmers are finding more out about the disease's effects on their cows daily. Researchers are narrowing down how the virus travels and implementing protocols for farmers. However, these containment measures — coupled with long-term effects on the cows themselves — have an industry already beset by rising costs and low returns teetering.
"All those ramifications are absolutely going to be crippling to some dairies," Raudabaugh said. "If a dairy was in a financially tough position before this and they get hit with this, I don't see them coming through this."
A map shows the number of confirmed cases in the United States of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Flu. (U.S. Department of Agriculture) Keeping Cows Hydrated Is Key Within hours of infection, cows stop digesting their food, they stop eating, and they stop hydrating, said Raudabaugh. Cows develop very high fevers.
"Those things happen in a matter of hours," Raudabaugh said.
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Nose-to-nose contact between the animals spreads the disease, so once the disease is detected, animals need to be isolated. Last week's heat wave put extra pressure on the animals, forcing dairies to keep barns cooler.
For cows with milder symptoms, treatment might only take a day or two, Fernandes said. Aspirin, Vitamin B, fluids, and food can usually be enough to get a cow to recovery. Cows with worse symptoms need to be "drenched" which means putting a tube down their throat to ensure they're getting enough fluids.
"Other cows that have been more affected and a lot more ill from the virus, we've been administering fluids via drenching, drenching cows with electrolytes, getting dehydrated cows adequate fluids to help combat the virus," Fernandes said.
Milk Production Recovery Rates SplitAvian flu is deadly in poultry, devastating farm and wild birds throughout the country. Fatality in cows is far less pronounced, especially with treatment.
Virologists think the jump to cows can be traced back to a wild bird at a Michigan poultry farm, Raudabaugh said.
A worker's split shift between the poultry farm and a dairy brought it to cows. There, it adapted to mammary tissue, Raudabaugh said.
"It only cleaves to mammary tissue, which is why beef is not affected," Raudabaugh said. "This is very, very interesting because we've not seen that development before."
Researchers are starting to get January and December data back from eastern states that had the disease first.
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Fernandes has seen most of his cows starting to recover and produce milk again, but that's not universal.
Many dairies are finding long term milk production not returning, Raudabaugh said. For some farmers, that's meant culling.
But with beef and milk prices so high, replacement heifers are scarce. And as the virus continues to affect more dairies, finding healthy cows becomes even harder.
"I can tell that there are going to be some cows that don't come out of it, but it's too soon to put a figure or a percentage or any sort of statistic to that yet," Fernandes said.
(Editor's Note: The latest Food and Drug Administration updates on the avian flu are at this link.)
Tougher Biosecurity Measures in PlacePasteurization kills the virus and cows with the disease are taken off the line, so dairies are still producing milk. But they do so with "demonstrably" increased biosecurity measures, Raudabaugh said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture put strict quarantines on dairies with detected viruses. That means continued testing and containment measures, she said. Dairies have regular daily shipments, but with uncertainty around how the disease spreads, extra caution is being taken.
Deliveries to dairies might be a mile up the road, she said. Any trucks going into a facility need to be hosed down with a bleach solution. Workers have been given protective gear such as gloves, goggles, and face shields to keep them safe. The disease can be aerosolized through the milking process, so workers need extra protection. The cow-to-human transmission level has been limited.
Symptoms in humans turn out to be similar to conjunctivitis, Raudabaugh said, so it's possible not all cases are being reported.
But in addition to containment measures, multiple state and federal agencies need dairies to report their results.
Involved agencies include California Department of Agriculture, USDA, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, and more.
"It's very stressful because at the same time you're trying to take care of your animals who are on death's door," she said.
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza is a disease that is highly contagious and often deadly in poultry, caused by highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5) and A (H7) viruses; it is also known as bird or avian flu. (FDA) Containment Costs Come as Farmers Expect Minimal Returns When the disease first began showing up, experts thought wild birds brought the pathogen from dairy to dairy. Birds like to hang around dairies for the bugs, Raudabaugh said. But researchers have ruled out that the disease is spreading that way.
Finding that out has been a relief, but other methods of transmission need to be ruled out.
What's called fomite transmission — objects such as boots, gloves, or tires — is now being considered.
But that could mean tires, boots, or even flies.
Raudabaugh said they are trying to keep quiet exactly which dairies are under quarantine because animal rights activists have been seen monitoring animals. Researchers worry activists could also become vectors.
The extra costs come with drastically lowered milk production rates. Government checks to help with additional containment costs help, but most California dairies are too big to qualify for USDA programs.
"That's a huge problem because in about two weeks, these farms under quarantine are going to start to get their milk checks for September," Raudabaugh said. "And those milk checks are probably going to be half of what they were the month before."
With Bird Flu Spreading Rapidly Among California Dairy Cows, Will Milk Prices Rise?
As a rapidly increasing number of California dairy farms suffer outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu, industry experts say it remains unclear just how the disease may affect the nation's milk supply or pricing.
As of Oct. 9, the nation's largest milk producing state had reported 93 H5N1 outbreaks in dairy herds — nearly doubling in the span of a week.
There have also been three confirmed and two presumptive cases of human infection. All five cases were among Central Valley dairy workers who had no known connection.
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State and federal health authorities insist that H5N1 poses little threat to humans and that it is safe to drink milk that has been pasteurized, because the process kills the virus.
However, dairy farmers and veterinarians are reporting far greater rates of mortality among infected herds than anticipated and steep drops in the rate of milk production among recovered cows. At the same time, some epidemiologists fear that as the virus spreads among California farms, it greatly increases the odds that it can mix with a human virus and create a health threat for people.
Although the number of outbreaks has had little impact on overall milk production, some experts warn that the number of infected farms could grow substantially in the coming weeks.
"Things are going to get worse before they get better," said Michael Payne, a researcher and outreach coordinator at the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at UC Davis.
What this means for the nation's milk supply — and milk prices — remains unclear.
"So far, there has been little industrywide impact of the disease on share of cattle affected in California, so little impact on marketable dairy production," said Daniel Sumner, an agricultural economist at UC Davis. "There is almost no bird flu on dairies outside California, and that means farm milk prices have not risen measurably."
He said that unless many more herds are affected in California or elsewhere, "farm milk prices and consumer milk prices are unlikely to rise measurably."
Nathaniel Donnay, director of dairy market insight with StoneX, a financial services company, agreed that production impacts have been relatively small; however, "It only takes small changes in supply or demand to have a big impact on prices."
He said looking at the extent of the reported outbreak, about 4.8% of the nation's dairy cows have been infected. However, the actual number may be "much higher since many cases have gone unreported."
The drop in milk production for an individual cow or farm can be quite large — recent reports from California show that an infected cow can lose up to 100% over a few days, and later return to 60% to 70% of typical production. Elsewhere, that number has been closer to 5% to 10%. However, when compared with national milk production, or production in individual states, the impact is much smaller, Donnay said.
For example, U.S. Department of Agriculture data for heavily affected states such as Texas, Idaho and Colorado showed a 1% to 3% drop in year-over-year milk production.
In Colorado, where 60% of the farms suffered outbreaks, milk production by cow dropped only 2.6% since last June, Donnay said.
H5N1 in dairy cattle has been "knocking 0.2% to 0.5% off U.S. Level milk production since March, and the spread into California could knock something closer to 0.5% to 0.8% off U.S. Milk production for October," Donnay said.
"Either way, it is a relatively small impact," he said.
In order for there to be a significant impact on national milk production, Donnay said that 500 or more herds would have to be infected in a month.
California has roughly 1,100 herds and 1.7 million cows and produces 20% of the milk produced in the country.
Fortunately for dairy farms across the nation, milk prices are high, and feed costs are down, Donnay said. That means profitability margins for the nation's dairy farmers are looking "very, very good" — even with the raging viral outbreak.
Of bigger concern is the outstanding question of whether infected cows will rebound in their next lactation cycle — after they've had time to "dry out" and heal.
According to Payne, at UC Davis, a typical dairy cow milks for about nine months. Milk production is initially stimulated by the birth of a calf. It ramps up in the weeks after birth — peaking between weeks six and 10 — and slowly tapers off over the next several months.
While the cow is milking, she is impregnated. Roughly two months before she is to give birth again, she is taken out of the milking barn and "dried out." Then, after she's given birth again, she's put back into the mix.
The first cows infected in Texas are only just now reentering the mix, and it's still too early to tell whether those first infected cows will come back to pre-infection production, or stay depressed, Payne said.
Donnay said statewide milk production is variable across time, but looking at the 14 states that have had bird flu, there are clear signatures in the data: a marked drop in production that lasts for a few weeks.
He said it is clear — from data and his conversations with farmers — that there has been vast under counting of the disease in the nation's dairy herds.
He said the explosion being seen in California is partly the result of rapaciousness of the virus, but also an artifact of the state's efforts to test every herd within 6 miles of an infected herd, as well as any herd that has an epidemiological tie with one that's been infected — shared personnel, equipment or veterinarians, for example.
He said Colorado was the only other state that exploded in the same way that California has — and again, the high numbers were likely the result of mandated testing.
He said when testing was finished in Colorado, somewhere between 60 and 100% of the state's herds had been infected.
If the same can be expected for California, he said, the state could be looking northward of 600 cases in the next few weeks.
John Korslund, a retired U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarian epidemiologist, said if that were to happen — and he said he has reason to believe it will — "I would estimate that the California dairy outbreak is the most serious and widespread infectious animal disease outbreak in history."
- Susanne Rust, Los Angeles Times
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Lumpy Disease Outbreak Kills Over 200 Cattle In Lakes State
At least 273 head of cattle died from a Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) outbreak which affected 5,024 animals with 3,588 recoveries, while 1,480 are still infected, according to officials in Lakes State.
The outbreak is reported to have infected cattle and goats across eight counties of Lakes State.
The minister of animal resource and fisheries in Lakes State, Samuel Gai, announced the outbreak and appealed to the national government and partners to intervene.
"Today I would like to announce and inform the citizens of Lakes State and the national government, especially the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries and its partners that there is an outbreak of lumpy skin disease," he said. "So far we have made a data collection and investigation in all eight counties of Lakes State and now we have all the data available."
Minister Gai urged the general public, particularly livestock owners, to take preventive measures before the intervention of the government and partners.
"Isolate sick animals, clean the cow pens, and minimize random livestock migration. These are the three preventive measures that people are supposed to take before we receive drugs from the national government," he advised. "We have sent the report about this disease outbreak in Lakes State and we are waiting for a response. This disease is actually serious, it is devastating and it is killing a lot of animals."
The minister urged for a quick response to "rescue the few animals we have."
For his part, James Majak Muorwel, a laboratory technician, said that three of his cattle have been infected by the disease.
"We are now carrying out an awareness campaign in the community. I have treated about 23 cases and there no cow has died during treatment." He stated. "The number of infected cattle has increased and I do not know what will happen to them, whether these cows will survive or not."
Meanwhile, Mayak Mabil of Rumbek Centre County said the animal skin disease locally known as "tuuntun" has infected a large number of animals in the area.
"More than 20 cows are being vaccinated daily by veterinarians in Rumbek Centre County and people are also vaccinating their cows in their respective places," he said. "This disease is killing very many cows and goats. FAO and other NGOs used to provide us with medicines for animal diseases this time they have not given us anything. We are now going for 3 days without medicines to vaccinate animals and we are relying on private veterinary pharmacies in Rumbek Town."
Another cattle keeper in Rumbek Central County, Dut Gum Dut, confirmed that the disease has infected a large number of cows and goats, is killing calves daily, and spreading to all cattle camps and villages.
He urged the government and partners to provide drugs.
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