Avian Flu Virus Confirmed in Michigan Dairy Herd

Aug 27, 2024

By Stephanie Soucheray

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus has been confirmed in a dairy herd in Van Buren County, Michigan—the nation's first detection for almost 2 weeks. The last detection in Michigan was on July 26, also in Van Buren County.

The detection brings the number of affected dairy herds in Michigan to 28, and samples have been sent to the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Veterinary Services Laboratories for additional confirmatory testing, according to the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development.

According to state rules, the detection will now prohibit the exhibition of all lactating dairy cattle, and those in the last 2 months of pregnancy, until there are no new cases of HPAI in Michigan dairy cattle for at least 60 consecutive days.

In the past 30 days, 5 states have reported 20 cases of HPAI in dairy cattle, according to the USDA. The most recent previous detections were in Colorado and Idaho.

Study suggests antibodies to flu common in raptors

In other avian flu news, a preprint study of raptors from the University of Minnesota's Raptor Center and the Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory in Duluth during the 2022-23 H5N1 avian flu outbreak finds that 69.1% of bald eagles were seropositive for influenza virus, and 52 of 67 (77.6%) of them tested positive for antibodies to both H5 and N1.

The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, offers new insight on the seroprevalence of influenza viruses in wild birds. According to the authors, the prevalence of influenza antibodies observed in this study was higher than reported from raptors sampled in this same region in 2012

Source : umn.edu

Video: Making budget friendly pig feed on a small livestock farm

I am going to show you how we save our farm money by making our own pig feed. It's the same process as making our cattle feed just with a slight adjustment to our grinder/ mixer that makes all the difference. We buy all the feed stuff required to make the total mix feed. Run each through the mixer and at the end of the process we have a product that can be consumed by our pigs.

I am the 2nd generation to live on this property after my parents purchased it in 1978. As a child my father hobby farmed pigs for a couple years and ran a vegetable garden. But we were not a farm by any stretch of the imagination. There were however many family dairy farms surrounding us. So naturally I was hooked with farming since I saw my first tractor. As time went on, I worked for a couple of these farms and that only fueled my love of agriculture. In 2019 I was able to move back home as my parents were ready to downsize and I was ready to try my hand at farming. Stacy and logan share the same love of farming as I do. Stacy growing up on her family's dairy farm and logans exposure of farming/tractors at a very young age. We all share this same passion to grow a quality/healthy product to share with our community. Join us on this journey and see where the farm life takes us.