1 March 2026
Right now there’s a perfect storm of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania with “all hands on deck” to stop it. Since 28 January 7.5 million birds have died in PA.
USDA’s 30-day bird flu map shows that PA is the only state in serious trouble.
Several things combined to make this possible.
- Pennsylvania is the fourth largest egg-producing state (after Iowa, Ohio and Indiana).
- Lancaster County (LanCo) is the top egg-producing county in PA and one of the largest poultry and egg producers in the world.
- To achieve this volume the county has quite a few large industrial chicken farms. Some of these house more than a million birds making LanCo the most densely poultry-populated county in the U.S.
- Domestic chickens are highly susceptible to bird flu and this strain is especially deadly. It is called “highly pathogenic” or “high path.” (HPAI)
- This is the first virus that can jump directly from wild birds to poultry.
HPAI has been in the U.S. since 2022 so why did it affect so many chickens this February?…