The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed the presence of virulent Newcastle disease in a small flock of backyard exhibition chickens in Utah County, Utah. This is the first case of virulent Newcastle disease in Utah.

This case is believed to be connected to the current outbreak of virulent Newcastle disease in California, as three of the birds at the premises were recently moved to Utah from Los Angeles County, California.  Since May 2018, 299 cases of Newcastle disease have been confirmed in Southern California, primarily in backyard exhibition birds.  Read more

California state veterinarian Dr. Annette Jones has sent a letter to poultry exhibitors in California recommending that all poultry exhibitions be cancelled if they include birds from counties that are at high risk for virulent Newcastle disease (VND): Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura, CA.

According to the letter distributed by the California Department of Food & Agriculture, Jones said the effort would “support our disease containment and eradication efforts” of the disease outbreak that began in May 2018. Read more

Field experience with infectious bronchitis (IB) in broilers during a harsh winter demonstrated that vaccination for secondary Escherichia coli infection helped stem losses, according to Kalen Cookson, DVM, MAM. Broiler flocks in the poultry-dense Delmarva region of the US had been affected by the DMV-1639 IB strain.

At the time, no vaccines were available to protect against the emerging pathogen, which gained momentum throughout the winter, Cookson, director of clinical research, Zoetis, told Poultry Health Today at the 2018 International Avian Respiratory Disease Conference.  Read more

Recalls of hazardous meat and poultry have gone up by more than 80 percent in the last six years, according to a new report out Thursday morning. One in six Americans get sick every year from eating contaminated food leading to at least 3,000 deaths per year – 450 from salmonella alone.

“Something is rotten in our slaughterhouses and our fields, and so common sense protections from farm to fork can help prevent that,” said Adam Garber, a researcher for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, the organization behind the report.  Read more

The new wave of Avian Influenza outbreaks in Vietnam and Thailand clearly shows that the avian virus remains endemic in Asia and that affected countries need to do more to keep it under control, FAO and the World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) said today in a joint statement. Recent experience shows that it may be impossible to eradicate the virus soon. “The disease will be present for several years in the countries that experienced outbreaks during 2004”, the two agencies said.

“Avian Influenza is an on-going emergency disease that spreads across borders. It has serious implications for the public and animal health sector in the affected countries,” FAO/OIE said.  Read more

Those who are the most opposed to genetically modified organisms tend to know the least about them -although they believe they know more than others – according to recent research. The study was published Jan. 14 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. Results showed the more strongly respondents said they opposed GMO foods, the more knowledgeable they thought they were about the issue – but the lower their scores were on the knowledge test. Read more

French foie gras makers have accused the U.S. Supreme Court of bowing to false claims by vegetarian lobbyists with its refusal to hear an appeal against a California ban on the delicacy produced from force-fed ducks and geese. Read more

A group of bipartisan senators who met to discuss the government shutdown today ran run into significant hurdles today, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the meeting.

“It was rough going,” a source said, noting President Trump has repeatedly rejected proposals that immediately reopen the government before negotiations to lock in a final border security deal can be reached – something that remains a central sticking point.  Read more

Heat control in poultry houses is a very important consideration for the poultry industry in the southeastern U.S., particularly in Mississippi, where summer temperatures can exceed 90°F for more than 100 days of the year, according to an announcement from Mississippi State University.  Read more