(BATON ROUGE)---State agriculture officials are asking Louisiana's poultry farmers to increase their health monitoring of chickens after an outbreak of avian influenza was found last week in northwest Arkansas.

Agriculture Commissioner Dr. Mike Strain says that he's asking the poultry industry to increase the bird sample size it sends to the state diagnostic lab in north Louisiana. He adds that the lab checks the chickens to detect any problems before the poultry is sent to processing plants.

Dr. Strain says that Arkansas officials found a strain of the bird flu virus during routine testing and narrowed it down to two poultry houses owned by Tyson Foods. He adds that the stock of each farm was "depopulated" according to national standards.

Dr. Strain urges both larger and backyard poultry producers to continue their vigilance and efforts to screen their flocks for the avian influenza virus.

Leave a comment

Name:

Email:

URL:  

Remember personal info?

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.