Bird Flu?

It was near dusk on an evening last spring when I looked out at the chickens from the dining room window. I was checking to see if the flock was heading toward the coop for the night. It’s easier to round them up if they want to retire; if not, they run this way and that, especially a recalcitrant white Leghorn that darts away from me and forces me to chase her in circles through the mud.

They were not ready to roost.

All seemed well though: chickens doing what chickens do — scratching and pecking for bugs, rolling in the dirt, dozing on the grass in the fenced-in area of the old spring house, now a chicken coop.

I went to the barn instead. I had chores to do there as well. I needed to water my seedlings in the garden room and feed the stray cat that took up residence in the hayloft last winter. As I walked back to the coop, I saw from a distance that one chicken was still out. Closer still, I noticed it was one of our three Buff Cochins — hen or rooster I wasn’t sure — and it wasn’t moving.

Our golden and furry-footed Buff Cochin rooster had dropped dead.

I can usually tell when chickens are unwell: They lose weight or drop feathers, look listless, totter across the grass or don’t leave the coop at all. I’ve heard them wheeze. But I’d seen no signs of distress in the rooster.

He was my prized rooster, too — not because he’d won a blue ribbon at a farm show, but because I’d hatched him myself. During COVID, when everyone wanted to be a chicken farmer and I couldn’t order chicks from the usual Iowa hatchery, I separated the Cochin rooster and hens from the flock and let nature take its course.

But raising chickens is not easy; I lost numerous chicks. The most painful loss was a chick born with one leg that stuck out lifeless behind it, called a spraddle leg. (My first mistake was naming the bird Spraddle.) It couldn’t walk; it could only drag itself on its belly. We tried to straighten its left leg by devising a tiny sling out of vet wrap. We built a chick hospital out of a detergent top and attached small containers of food and water so it could sit upright and feed and drink (mistakes two and three).

My daughter had been home earlier in the pandemic, and she and I had witnessed a sick chick in a previous clutch. After much discussion, we had decided not to intervene, figuring the mother hen knew best how to help it. We left the peep overnight. But when we returned to the barn the next morning, it was dead. I didn’t want that to happen again.

“We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals,” Immanuel Kant said, but now I think I shouldn’t have intervened with Spraddle, either. I should have let the other chickens handle a sick chick in their own manner. When Spraddle’s leg didn’t heal, I had the tortuous task of having to cull him from the flock. I tried to do so humanely, but that didn’t work, either. As I was deciding my next step, one of our dogs snatched him away and ended the affair. I dug a small grave in the woods and used a rock as a headstone. Death on the farm is never easy.

From those COVID broods, this rooster and two hens were all that remained. The rooster was stately and beautiful and since 2020 had nobly guarded a flock of 11 hens. He greeted us each morning — and throughout the day — with hardy crows. He was part of the fabric of this farm.

I turned him over to see where the attack had occurred. I looked for signs of blood, particularly the neck. I had never had a bird die so unexpectedly unless attacked by another animal, yet I doubted that had happened in the short time I was in the barn — and without the usual warning cries to which the dogs and I have become accustomed. Maybe the attack had come quickly from above: a hawk or an owl? But I saw no wound or mass of feathers. A fox or raccoon would have eaten or taken the carcass. An owl usually takes the head and neck.

Could our rooster have died of bird flu?

If so, I should not have been handling him without gloves. I went back to the barn and got a pair, returned to the coop and did the same inspection. Still no sign of attack, which made me worry even more.

Many different strains of avian influenza have been around for a long while, but H5N1, or high pathogenic avian influenza, is widespread in wild birds and has infected poultry and dairy cows, as well as cats, dogs, foxes, bears and other mammals. The disease was first recognized in humans in Hong Kong in 1997. As of last April, 972 confirmed human cases in 25 countries have been reported, including 470 deaths.

In the United States, 70 human cases of H5N1 have been confirmed as of this writing, including one death last January of an immunocompromised man in Louisiana. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes the disease is a low risk to public health.

No human deaths have been reported in Pennsylvania, and we’ve had no cases in dairy cattle. But the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture announced last January the first confirmed case in domestic poultry in a 50,000-bird flock on a commercial poultry farm in Lehigh County. All the birds had to be culled. Westmoreland County has had no cases, but a backyard flock in Butler County tested positive last February and 600 birds were destroyed.

“If you suspect your birds may have avian influenza, don’t wait, report it,” said Heather Palm, a Veterinary Medical Field Officer with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture in Mercer County. She called me back after I’d called the agency’s bird flu phone number in Harrisburg — open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. That’s serious business, I thought; the government is not taking this disease lightly.

Palm confirmed what I’d read in my research — that a bird could show no symptoms and die of bird flu. “It could look like anything,” she said. “Respiratory symptoms or, in hens, less egg production — or no clinical symptoms at all.”

Most H5N1 infections come from waterfowl, Palm said. The disease occurs naturally in wild birds, especially ducks and geese, and spreads in their feces. But waterfowl are asymptomatic. “They can carry the disease and not get sick,” she said.

We have a pond and waterfowl. Last spring, we had more ducks than I could remember — our usual pair of nesting mallards and five ducklings. I loved to watch them swim across the pond like a little flotilla. Then a pair of wood ducks showed up. Canada geese land in the pond occasionally. “Just the fact that they are there is a risk,” Palm said.

She asked me if I have “dedicated footwear” for the chicken coop? Yes, I said, I have a pair of old, ripped muck boots I wear in the pen — not in our house. But, she asked further, do I wear those to walk around the pond and then walk to the coop? I do. If so, I might have picked up the disease on my boots and taken it into the henhouse. I could be the guilty one.

I also called a local chicken breeder who advised me to check the rooster’s cloaca, or the vent. If that is clogged — “a pasty vent” it’s called — that could be a sign of something other than bird flu — intestinal parasites, for example, such as coccidia, a common cause of death in chickens. I did so. The vent was fine.

Palm reminded me of the necessity for safe handling — to wash my hands to prevent contracting salmonella or e coli. A neighbor had contracted salmonella from handling chicks, so I am always extra careful about this, but I worried that if our rooster did have bird flu, might I have been at further risk from handling the rooster without gloves?

I’d also seen a neighbor’s cat at the pond and the coop, and while Palm and I ruled out that the cat had attacked the rooster — again, there would have been signs of a struggle — that was another way the disease could have been transmitted. “Bird flu is very fatal in cats,” Palm said. Cats often present with acute neurological and respiratory signs, she said.

She told me to hold onto the carcass for two days. The disease has high mortality and if the rooster had bird flu, the hens will die in the next day or two. One dead rooster wasn’t a huge concern to her, but had I reported 30,000 dead hens, Palm’s team would have been out to our farm that night. And when her team does visit a farm suspected of bird flu, they wear full Personal Protective Equipment: Tyvek suits, booties, double rubber gloves, N95 respirators, and hairnets.

I waited two days. I watched the flock for further signs of death. When they were asleep in their dust holes, I worried another was dead. But in the end, all 11 hens survived. Our rooster did not have bird flu. The most likely cause of death was a heart attack, common in large breeds and five years is getting old for a big bird, Palm said. He might have had a tumor. I could have sent the carcass for a necropsy for $70, which would have given me 100 percent accuracy as to the cause of death, but Palm didn’t recommend it because it wouldn’t affect the rest of the flock. After two days, she said to dispose of the carcass according to what is allowed in my area.

I was grateful the rooster didn’t die of bird flu, but sad to see him go. He was special to me not only because I watched his initial pips through the eggshell, but because he was gentle — to us and the hens — and the hens that will not be as safe without him. He was nearly twice their size. I’ve already seen the hens assume some of his duties, though, like warning of a hawk flying overhead and one leading the flock in at dusk. I will watch to see which is the dominant hen in the new pecking order.

Because of bird flu, chickens are difficult to buy. The Iowa breeder had male buff Cochins only and few females of any breed. A minimum order of 15 was required to keep the chicks warm during transport and as much as we love buff Cochins, ordering 15 roosters was not an option. I thought maybe I could replace the rooster locally, but the breeder said she couldn’t find buff Cochins anywhere.

The farm is quieter now — alas, no more morning avian reveille! And one less bird to round up for the night.