Dean Bowman walks along a row of empty cages with photos of ducks and chickens inside the poultry barn July 6 at the St. Joseph County 4-H Fair in South Bend. The threat of bird flu led the state of Indiana to ban taking birds to events, including county fairs, where they would co-mingle. That ban has been lifted. SBT Photo/ROBERT FRANKLIN
By the numbers
• Indiana ranks first in the nation for duck production.
• Indiana is among the nation's top five states in both egg and turkey production.
• Indiana's poultry industry directly contributes more than $4.25 billion annually to the state's economy
SOURCE: Indiana State Poultry Association
After nearly four months, the Indiana ban on bird movement is over.
Earlier this year, a highly contagious avian flu outbreak affected 223 farms in 16 states with a loss of 48 million birds nationwide. It led to to a spike in poultry and egg prices.
Indiana had only one confirmed bird flu case, which affected 77 birds in a backyard coop in Whitley County — east of Warsaw — and it was of a different strain of bird flu than the one that concerned state and health officials.
But the Indiana State Board of Animal Health acted quickly. In May, it imposed a statewide ban on moving birds to any location where they might mingle with other birds, including livestock shows, county fairs and public sales. The goal was to protect Indiana’s commercial poultry industry and backyard flocks from the H5 avian influenza virus.
“This particular strain was known to wipe out birds fairly quickly,” said Jeffrey Burbrink, a Purdue Extension agent in Elkhart County. He explained that most producers today have barns with 50,000 to 60,000 birds and that if a couple of those producers are affected, it can be a big deal.
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