Sonoma County farmers confront new avian flu wave and debate over vaccine
The first tastes of wintry weather have brought an ominous feeling back to Sonoma County’s poultry producers. At least three farms have tested positive for Highly Pathogenic Avian Flu, or HPAI, in the past three weeks — early echoes of the 2023-24 winter outbreak that devastated the local industry.
“If the wind changes, as it did a couple days ago, we’re nervous,” said Mike Weber, who co-owns egg-laying operations Sunrise Farms and Weber Family Farms in Petaluma. “We’re on pins and needles until February. It’s simply scary as hell. We don’t get much sleep at night.”
Weber’s farms had been spared the contagion as of Friday — unlike two years ago, when the business lost 550,000 chickens and 3.2 million eggs at two sites.
The three recent Sonoma County cases are the first recorded among California’s commercial producers this winter.
Like human flu, avian influenza consistently spikes in colder months. HPAI spreads along the continent’s migratory flyways, including the Pacific Flyway that blankets the North Bay.
Reichardt Duck Farm, in the Two Rock area west of Petaluma, was the first to test positive this year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture logged the case Oct. 27. The Press Democrat was unable to independently verify the other two affected properties, which were confirmed by the USDA on Oct. 28 and Nov. 5. At least one of them is an egg farm, according to the data.
It usually takes several days for a positive test to show up on the USDA website.
A representative of Perdue Farms, the Maryland-based agribusiness giant that owns the Petaluma Poultry brand, said that “due to our enhanced biosecurity, we have not been affected by the recent AI outbreaks,” including at local farms that supply Perdue with chickens. Jordan Mahrt, co-owner of Petaluma Egg Farm — another business that absorbed heavy losses two years ago — did not respond to messages.
350,000 dead birds — and counting
When a poultry farm tests positive, owners must euthanize every chicken, duck or turkey at the site to prevent spread of a virus that is highly transmissible and often lethal in birds. So far this season, Sonoma County farmers have had to kill more than 350,000 birds.
Weber said the quick response and tight biosecurity measures adopted by local producers give him hope the virus can be contained. But Phil Reichardt, the duck farm’s owner, told The Press Democrat the same thing Nov. 3; two additional facilities were infected shortly after.
The reality is that avian flu is so prevalent in migratory wild birds, and so easily inhaled by domesticated flocks, that no farm is truly safe.
“We have a lot of sympathy and empathy for our county producers. We don’t want to see them go through this,” said Andrew Smith, the Sonoma County agricultural commissioner. “And you know there’s little you can do as a bureaucrat to make it all go away. I think that’s what hurts the most.”
Positive tests trigger hurried rounds of communication among farmers, Smith’s office, the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the USDA.
Business owners are responsible for the euthanasia, in consultation with the state. As of Friday, Weber said, that somber work had been completed at all three impacted sites.
Sonoma County officials aren’t mandating additional safety measures at this point, Smith said.
“It’s all about really strict adherence to biosecurity protocols,” he said. “If I were to say anything, it would be, ‘Don’t share employees, and don’t share equipment, to the degree you can. And be sure you’re advising your staff on their own health.’”
HPAI has shown an ability to jump across species — to cattle and, less commonly, to humans.
Nationwide, at least 70 people have contracted HPAI since 2022, one fatally, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In California, 38 cases have been confirmed — 36 linked to dairy farms and two of unknown origin.
No Sonoma County dairy farms have suffered an avian flu outbreak, Smith said. He credited “better isolation and better insulation,” with less crowding of cows and less swapping of calves or pieces of equipment between facilities.
If the recent outbreaks haven’t altered local government policy, they’ve certainly pushed farmers into a higher gear.
Weber said he and his brother, Scott, have shut down their operations to casual visitors. Only employees and truck drivers delivering feed or picking up eggs are allowed on site. Every staff member just got a clean pair of $100 boots. Employees check the laying houses for mortality every morning and evening.
“We have two truck washes set up at our farms,” Weber said. “An employee is stationed there, to make sure every car that comes in is logged. And then they’re personally disinfecting it. Everyone’s pickup smells like a disinfectant wash.”
The vaccine debate
Researcher Maurice Pitesky praises the industry’s biosecurity efforts but says they should extend beyond individual farms, since migrating waterfowl feed up to 2 miles or more from their nesting areas.
“What the USDA and CDFA should be doing, if there are 600 farms in the Central Valley, ultimately you want to understand which have the highest abundance of waterfowl around them,” said Pitesky, an associate professor at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine-Cooperative Extension. “You can kind of circle which farms have lagoons or dairies or rice farms around them.”
Pitesky has created an interactive data tool, the WaterFowl Alert Network, that shows waterfowl density in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. (The radar technology on which it’s based doesn’t work for the North Bay.) Starting in fall, he said, “the projections change daily. It’s a dynamic reality.”
When interviewed two weeks ago, Reichardt took polite exception to rules requiring culling every bird at an affected farm. He argued that removing sick or dead animals and isolating healthy ones could potentially save million of birds.
With cases spreading again — and an estimated 183 million farm birds dead or culled nationwide since 2022 — farmers and researchers are also reviving a long-simmering question: whether it’s time to vaccinate poultry against avian flu.
Pharmaceutical companies have worked on a vaccine for more than 20 years, and France launched a pilot program in 2023. But the shots are prohibited in the United States because tests can’t always distinguish between an infected bird and a vaccinated one.
Weber said the policy was enacted to protect poultry exports — but producers like Sunrise Farms rarely sell abroad. He believes it’s time for the federal government to allow vaccination.
“The research shows it’s working,” he said. “And it’s an animal welfare issue. Protecting these animals is our job. Denying that vaccine is horrible.”
A divide has emerged within the poultry industry, Pitesky said. Egg farmers, who don’t rely much on exports and have been hit hardest by the HPAI pandemic, tend to support vaccination. Farmers who raise birds for meat — known as broilers — export more and have been impacted less, and generally oppose it.
Pitesky has concerns of his own. Vaccines protect against the development of disease, not initial infection. That means inoculated birds could become asymptomatic carriers. More than that, he said, there’s still no clear national vaccination strategy.
“If you have hundreds of millions of egg layers every year, no one can possibly vaccinate all those birds,” Pitesky said. “You’re gonna vaccinate where the risk is elevated.”
As of early November, no place carries more of that risk than Sonoma County.
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