Spread of avian flu appears to be slowing in Western Canada

May 15, 2023

The last cases were detected in April in Alberta and B.C.

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

Avian flu doesn’t appear to be spreading in Western Canada at the rate it once was.

The two most recent cases in the west detected by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) happed on April 21 in Alberta and April 29 in B.C.

The Alberta case was found on a non-commercial non-poultry premises in Lacombe County.

Prior to that, Alberta’s last confirmed case of avian flu occurred in a non-commercial poultry premises in Mountain View County.

Currently, Alberta has 11 premises currently infected and 50 previously infected locations. And CFIA estimates 1.4 million birds have been affected as of May 10.

And the case in B.C. was identified in a commercial poultry operation in the City of Chilliwack. Prior to that case, B.C. saw another instance of avian flu in Chilliwack on Jan. 22.

As of May 10, B.C. has eight infected premises and 96 previously infected. And 3.67 million birds have been impacted, the CFIA says.

For the other two western provinces, the last cases happened in 2022.

In Manitoba, the most recent instance of avian flu happened in a non-commercial non-poultry location in the Rural Municipality of Woodlands on Nov. 17, 2022.

Manitoba has zero premises currently infected and 21 previously infected, with 287,000 birds impacted.

And in Saskatchewan, the CFIA confirmed its most recent case of the avian illness on Nov. 14, 2022, in a commercial poultry operation in the Rural Municipality of Humboldt.

Saskatchewan still has four premises infected with 28 previously infected. And the CFIA estimates about 495,000 birds in that province have been impacted.

Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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