Despite the spread of avian flu in Ohio which has killed more than 15 million chickens in the state, raising hens for eggs or food in suburban and urban areas has been growing in popularity.
Gahanna resident Scot Wootten said it's about connecting with wildlife and not the eggs they produce. He owns nine chickens. Wootten’s wife and children help him care for them in a chicken coop he bought for $1,000.
“Those there are about the healthiest chickens you're going to come across,” Wootten said. “I mean, if you look at their feathers on the back, they're fully feathered. There's no signs of disease or anything.”
WOSU’s Debbie Holmes spoke with Wootten and Ohio State University Extension Educator and veterinarian Dr. Tim McDermott. OSU is offering an online course for backyard poultry keepers in urban and suburban areas on how to prevent bird flu in their flocks.
Debbie Holmes: So where do we stand with the number of backyard poultry enthusiasts in Ohio?
Dr. Tim McDermott: We don't really measure in terms of small amounts. When we look nationally, we have something like 11 million households keeping backyard birds. Now that's up about 10% over the last several years.
Debbie Holmes: What are the concerns about people raising hens on their own, especially with this avian flu in Ohio?
Dr. Tim McDermott: We have several concerns. One, we want to make sure that they can keep them legally and safely. So, we have a lot of people that are new to agriculture getting birds. They need a trusted source that's research based in order to get their information. So, this course was designed to create that resource source and with highly pathogenic avian influenza affecting the state, it was critical that we would put a big piece in there about biosecurity, which is preventing disease from entering the flock.
Debbie Holmes: What exactly then does this course teach people on how to interact and how to protect their birds?
Dr. Tim McDermott: The course is going to start out with the basics. We're going to talk terminology and then husbandry, a little bit about nutrition. We go into some rules and regulations that you want to look up. Where to get your chicks, how to brood them, and then what happens in the egg production process. But we do have a whole module in there about biosecurity, how you want to limit access to your flock, how you want to make sure you are protective over the coop and run. I tell folks there's only two groups that get to interact with your birds. That's their buddy birds inside the coop, and then you and your family, because that is the way that disease can enter into the flock.
Debbie Holmes: Do you think this course is helping?
Dr. Tim McDermott: I'm getting really good feedback from the course. It is proving to have an asset that we can distribute where people can take it online. We keep it pretty inexpensive. It's self-paced, and after you finish it, you can go back and re-watch parts of it if you want for at least a year.
Debbie Holmes Now has this bird flu then been affecting birds that aren't chickens, that fly and can fly from town to town?
Dr. Tim McDermott: Yes, so unfortunately this affects a wide variety of avian species. It can affect commercial poultry like chickens and turkeys. One of the groups of birds that's unfortunately getting really affected are raptors like eagles and hawks and owls.
Debbie Holmes: So, then there's that element of stray birds coming in.
Dr. Tim McDermott: Oh yeah, highly pathogenic avian influenza is carried by migratory waterfowl like geese and ducks. And where we see a backyard flock encountering them is if your backyard chickens can range through the property, especially if you have water on the property which is very attractive to those migratory waterfowl, they can encounter those birds and then there can be rapid transmission. And in fact, the first case in Franklin County was the first in Ohio in 2022 and that's exactly what happened.
Debbie Holmes: And how do you know when your hands have been affected?
Dr. Tim McDermott: So, the disease is pretty aggressive, and it really can cause some profound changes including acute mortality. We have a fact sheet that we host online on the poultry site at Ohio State University. We see multiple different signs that can affect multiple systems. One of the more common signs is we'll see purpling, almost like a bruising of the comb and the wattle on the bird. But unfortunately, acute mortality is one of the first signs we see.
Debbie Holmes: How many people then have been certified?
Dr. Tim McDermott: The last time I checked, we were getting close to 300 people in Ohio that had taken the course.
