(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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Another Buena Vista turkey flock infected by bird flu [1]
['Jared Strong', 'More From Author', '- October']
Date: 2023-11
A commercial turkey flock of about 30,000 birds in Buena Vista County was recently infected by a highly transmissible avian influenza and will be culled, according to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.
It is the fourth detection of the virus this fall in domestic bird flocks in Iowa and the second in Buena Vista County.
The virus is predominantly spread by migrating birds and is often deadly to chicken and turkey flocks. Those with confirmed infections are destroyed to prevent further spread from flock to flock.
It’s unclear yet whether the virus was transmitted between the two Buena Vista flocks because lab tests are pending, said Don McDowell, an IDALS spokesperson. The first virus detection in that county was in a flock of 50,000 turkeys on Oct. 20.
The two other virus detections were confirmed Oct. 23 in a commercial turkey flock in Pocahontas County and a backyard flock in Guthrie County.
The virus has also been found in more than a dozen commercial turkey flocks with more than 600,000 birds in Minnesota and South Dakota, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Iowa is particularly susceptible to significant bird losses because of its large chicken egg-laying operations, which can have millions of birds. About 16 million birds were culled in Iowa last year because of the virus.
Most of those were the result of detections during the spring migration, but this year there was just one detection during the spring in a backyard flock in Chickasaw County.
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