Sacramento County officials announced on Thursday, Oct. 29, that highly pathogenic avian influenza has been confirmed in two backyard poultry flocks in the county this month. According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s bird flu alert page, the first flock tested positive on Oct. 5 and the second on Oct. 23. The remaining birds in both flocks were culled.
County officials rated the risk to the general public as low. The bigger worry is for people who keep a few hens in a backyard coop, because state officials say the virus is moving through wild ducks, geese and raptors on the Pacific Flyway this fall.
Two Sacramento County flocks, 18 days apart
The county’s public health office and its Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures put out the news together, Rio Linda Online reported. Neither the county nor the state has said which communities the two flocks were in, and officials have not released how many birds each one held.
The state’s alert page lists the Oct. 23 Sacramento County case alongside a backyard flock in neighboring Solano County that was confirmed the same day. For both counties, the state wrote that no movement restrictions will be placed on poultry. That means backyard keepers elsewhere in the county are not under a quarantine order, though the state is still asking them to tighten up…