The presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has been confirmed in five commercial poultry flocks in Minnesota.
According to information from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), three of the affected premises are in Stearns County, while Meeker and Morrison counties each had one flock infection.
The Meeker County case involved a flock of 1,368,800 commercial table egg layers, while the Morrison County flock involved 51,900 commercial meat turkeys.
Two of the Stearns County flocks were commercial meat turkeys. One of those flocks included 22,000 turkeys, while APHIS has not yet released the number of birds in the other flock. The third Stearns County case was a flock of 7,500 commercial turkey breeder hens.
All five cases were confirmed by APHIS on May 21.
Prior to these flock infections, the last time HPAI was confirmed in a commercial poultry operation was May 2, when a commercial breeder operation in Dodge County was affected. In this instance, 8,500 birds were lost.
The only other U.S. commercial poultry operation to be struck by HPAI in May was a commercial meat turkey flock in Gratiot County, with 26,400 birds involved. That case was also confirmed on May 2.
To learn more about HPAI cases in commercial poultry flocks in the United States, Mexico and Canada, see an interactive map on WATTPoultry.com.
View our continuing coverage of the global avian influenza situation.
