Some 417,600 turkeys will be culled due to outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza on 11 farms over the weekend, said the Agriculture Department on Monday. The outbreaks helped raise the U.S. toll from the viral disease to 22.85 million birds, most of them chickens.
North Dakota accounted for 112,000 of the affected turkeys, with outbreaks in LaMoure and Dickey counties. “High path” bird flu was also confirmed in turkey flocks in Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, and South Dakota.
Overall, four of every five affected birds in domestic flocks were egg-laying hens, 18.45 million in all. Iowa, the No. 1 egg-producing state, had six of the 13 outbreaks among hens laying eggs for table consumption, totaling 13 million layers. Nearly 5 percent of laying hens in the country have died in bird flu outbreaks or through the culling of infected flocks.
More than 50 million birds, mostly laying hens and turkeys, died in a bird flu epidemic in 2014 and 2015 that created egg shortages in grocery stores.