Turkey farmers in Minnesota, the No. 1 turkey-producing state, lost more than 557,000 turkeys in 12 outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) this week, said the Agriculture Department on Wednesday. Total losses in the two weeks since the first outbreak was reported on March 25 are slightly over 1 million turkeys.
Minnesota produced 40.5 million turkeys last year, out of the U.S. total of 214 million birds.
Some 23.8 million birds, mostly chickens and turkeys, in domestic flocks across the nation have died of HPAI or in cullings of infected flocks in this year’s outbreaks, according to USDA data. It was the highest toll since the 2014-15 epidemic that killed more than 50 million birds. Iowa, No. 1 in eggs, and Minnesota, tops in turkeys, had the highest losses in the epidemic.
HPAI was confirmed at 21 turkey farms housing 879,682 birds in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, North Carolina and South Dakota in the first three days of this week.