REDWOOD CITY — The live poultry show has been canceled at this spring’s San Mateo County Fair. A major Peninsula veterinary hospital is postponing all chicken appointments. And worried Bay Area backyard bird hobbyists are taking special steps to protect their flocks.
News that a highly contagious and deadly bird virus was detected at a veterinary clinic in Redwood City on Thursday has alarmed the Bay Area’s poultry community, indicating that the dreaded Virulent Newcastle Disease has moved north from Southern California.
The disease, first reported on May 17 in Los Angeles County, has led to the euthanasia of over 1 million backyard and commercial birds in Southern California.
“The really big concern is the spread into commercial flocks,” said Richard Blatchford, a poultry specialist at UC Davis Department of Animal Science. It has already been found in three commercial facilities in Riverside County.
“It can wipe out an entire farm very quickly,” he said.
The disease causes only mild symptoms in humans who have very close contact with infected birds, but it can kill chickens, turkeys, cockatoos, cockatiels – and occasionally wild birds such as cormorants, pelicans and gulls.
“I am extremely worried about this news,” said Los Gatos resident Michelle Strachan, who owns nine chickens at her home in the Santa Cruz Mountains. “It made me gasp and got my heart racing immediately, as I understand the severity of it.”
She is taking rigorous steps to protect her flock: hand washing, keeping her birds confined to their pen, wearing disposable shoe covers at the feed store, not visiting friends who have poultry, not allowing friends with poultry to visit her birds and keeping a “closed” flock — “not adding any birds this year,” she said, “as tempting as those fluffy chicks may be!”
“The most important thing people can do is to not move their birds,” she said.
The new case – the first ever in Northern California – likely occurred in a bird that was transported from Southern California, where the outbreak began in backyard exhibition birds in Riverside County.
“We are in uncharted territory in terms of its spread about the state,” said UC’s Blatchford.
Southern California was also where the last outbreak occurred in 2003, which eventually led to infections in commercial flocks.
The region is a center for specialty bird breeders, likely in part because of the city’s year-round warm weather, according to California state veterinarian Dr. Annette Jones in a report in the American Veterinary Medicine Association. Small chicken farms and slaughterhouses supply local food and fill niche markets.
Most infections have occurred among chickens raised at homes on the outskirts of urban areas, where former farms and stables have become incorporated into cities but still have dense pockets of animals, including menageries of chickens, pigeons, and peacocks.
Because of the threat to the state’s $2.5-billion poultry industry, poultry owners are prohibited from moving birds in all of Los Angeles County, as well as large areas of San Bernardino and Riverside counties. The quarantine extends from the northern and southern borders of western Riverside County to the Salton Sea — including the Coachella Valley — and as far east as Yucca Valley in San Bernardino County, with a northern boundary at the Kern County line.
The focus was initially on backyard chickens, said Blatchford. But now it’s expanding.
On Dec. 16, 2018, the disease was reported in a commercial flock of 110,000 6-week-old layer chickens in Riverside County. Since then, a total of four commercial flocks, eight flocks used for egg production and one flock of young hens have become infected in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
In humans, the disease merely causes mild flu-like symptoms, laryngitis or conjunctivitis, an infection of the eye that is also called “pink eye.”
But in chickens, it is almost always fatal. Sick birds may sneeze, gasp for air, cough, show tremors, droop their wings, go stiff and experience greenish, watery diarrhea. Birds may die without showing any clinical signs of disease.
“Pet owners should not be adopting new chickens right now, or visiting other people’s chickens,” said veterinarian Dr. Hilary Stern of Animal Hospital of Soquel.
Due to the threat to the poultry industry in California, the California Department of Food and Agriculture recommended that the San Mateo County Fair suspend its poultry show for the 2019 fair season, according to San Mateo County Fair officials.
“Our Board will work with the local 4-H and FFA representatives to coordinate a bird-less poultry exhibit for the 2019 fair,” said Justin Aquino, manager of the San Mateo County Fair. “We will encourage students to participate in an educational display to educate fairgoers about the poultry industry.”
On Thursday, Adobe Animal Hospital of Los Gatos and Los Altos suspended all chicken appointments. It is working to create a way to work with clients using interactive video conferencing. If needed, a veterinarian will visit an animal confined to the owner’s car.
“If a case of Newcastle’s disease is seen at our hospital, the state will close the hospital for quarantine,” Adobe Animal Hospital told clients. “The state will then require us to euthanize any other chickens that were present at the same time the sick bird was seen…even if they are not sick.”
“We don’t want to risk the life of your chickens,” it said.
Infectious disease experts say owners of backyard chickens should follow at least these three basic steps:
- Wash hands and scrub boots before and after entering an area with birds.
- Clean and disinfect tires and equipment before moving them off the property.
- Isolate any birds returning from shows for 30 days before placing them with the rest of the flock.
Owners of backyard flocks should report any unusual bird deaths to the CDFA Sick Bird Hotline (toll-free) at 866-922-2473.
For more information, see www.cdfa.ca.gov/ahfss/Animal_Health/newcastle_disease_info.html.
