After confirming the presence of highly pathogenic avian flu in a flock of chickens, nearly 48,000 birds were killed at a north Alabama farm, state agriculture officials said.

A Marshall County commercial pullet farm — one that raises chicks from hatching until they are ready to produce eggs when they are moved to a laying barn — was placed under quarantine after samples were confirmed positive for HPAI, the Alabama Department of Agriculture & Industries announced Friday.

HPAI is highly contagious to birds but considered low risk to humans and the virus is not considered a threat to food safety, the department said.

  • jeffw@lemmy.worldM
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    11 months ago

    Friendly reminder that lab grown meat is 10-20 years away from being affordable and then we don’t have to deal with this shit happening every few months

    • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Vertical farmed lettuce had an outbreak of ecoli three times in the past year. These people care about profits, not safety.

      • jeffw@lemmy.worldM
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        11 months ago

        And you know where that E. coli comes from, right? It’s when farms put cattle too close to their lettuce (this is shockingly common) and the E. coli goes from the cattle shit and washes down to the irrigation system, which goes to the lettuce. My understanding is this still happens due to how the irrigation/water systems work for hydroponic stuff.

        Not sure if you’re agreeing with me or you were trying to point out a flaw, but it’s still all caused by animal ag being shitty.

        • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          EColi lives everywhere. It’s in your house. Your bathroom. It’s literally in the root vegetables you eat. That’s why you boil them. It’s impossible to have a truly clean food product is my point.

    • Machinist3359@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      Many folks could reduce meat consumption now as well to mitigate the damages.

      Americans have developed a norm of every meal needing meat, when for much of history it was a few times per week.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      11 months ago

      Yeah…no. not in this case. For one, chicken is way cheaper and quicker to grow than pork or beef, and especially in this particular case, these birds were raised for egg laying. You aren’t lab growing anything anytime soon that you can go buy for 97 cents a dozen.

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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          11 months ago

          Mid missouri. There’s egg farms right around here so farm to grocery store is like a 30 minute drive. Got a few 18 packs on sale for 99 cents a piece like a month ago.

    • Nora@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      You can also go vegan right now. Every person that goes vegan saves hundreds of animals a year.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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        11 months ago

        Not really. They just save the bigger/cuter ones. Thousands of mice, voles, moles, birds, rabbits, etc die from plowing up all the fields and machine gathering crops. Farming plants still kills lots of animals. Just not cows pigs and chickens.

        • Nora@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          You still farm crops to feed cows and pigs… You actually farm way less just to feed a human. So either way you’re still killing less animals over all. And there are also study’s showing the vast majority of field animals run to the edges of the field when the combines come.

          • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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            11 months ago

            That’s true of the crops for animal feed, but then one cow will provide over 1,000 meals worth of food, as well as feeding everyone’s pet dogs and cats.

            I’m thinking the difference in death tolls between natural omnivores compared to vegans is closer than you think.

      • deeferg@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Too many nut allergies. Unfortunately some of us won’t be able to go Vegan with the way the ingredient lists on a lot of Vegan options read.

        It would be great.

        • Nora@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          there are tons of options. Im vegan and nut and soy free because my roommate is allergic to nuts and soy among other things.

          We eat all kinds of beans and legumes and other sources of protein.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      They fill the barn with suffocating foam, if the chickens are lucky.

      If the chickens arent lucky, they just turn off the ventillation and close all the hatches. In full sun, the barn heats up to beyond lethal levels and the chickens die slowly of heatstroke.

      Many chicken barns have massive euthenasia systems built in, with huge tanks of nitrogen or CO2, and a foam generating sprinkler.

      In any case of disease they seal up the barn for days or weeks untill the corpses start to decay and then can be disinfected and sent to landfill.

    • aeternum@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      well, one time when swine flu was taking hold, they turned the air con off and the pigs boiled to death.

  • marx2k@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    On a side note, I’m really glad we decided to get backyard chickens this year. Got 5 in the spring. They started laying in October. Got 74 eggs from October 4th through today.