BURCHARD, Ne. (KMTV) — Avian influenza cases across the country have resulted in millions of chickens and turkeys depopulated, including in Nebraska and Iowa.
The highly pathogenic avian influenza, more commonly know as bird flu, can cause a variety of symptoms from a drop in egg production to respiratory issues and even death.
Plum Creek Farms Owner Logan Barr, located in Burchard, Nebraska, says if his farm were to experience an outbreak of avian influenza it would be "devastating."
"If we had an outbreak, they’d probably want to come in, and — I'd imagine — probably humanely kill all the chickens we have on the farm, and start over from scratch which for us, that’d be a pretty big hit. That’d pretty much wipe us out for a while so that would not be good," Barr says.
Plum Creek Farms has 8,000 to 10,000 chickens on their farm. Barr says if they had to start over, it'd be a minimum of 10 weeks to get going again. An outbreak would cause a domino effect since Plum Creek distributes to restaurants and grocery stores in Lincoln and Omaha.
"Essentially we’d have nothing for them, because we don’t have back-stock in the freezer, we don’t keep any frozen [chicken] on hand. So it’d pretty much end that day and ten weeks or 12 weeks until we can have some again, so it’d definitely be a domino effect down the chain," Barr said.
They're taking precautions on the farm to limit the possibility of exposure, like limiting the amount of people on the property.
"Right now that's mainly our big precaution, limiting access to the farm from outside visitors, especially people who own their own domestic poultry flocks. If they have chickens, then we really can’t allow them on our property at all. If they do, they have to wear clean boots or boot covers to be able to come on the property because that seems like the way it’d be tracked in," Barr said.
Barr says he's not overly concerned as of now because there haven't been any cases too close to his farm, but he's going to keep an eye on it.
SEE MORE: Another bird flu outbreak in Butler County, this time a flock of 400K
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