More than 70,000 commercial meat turkeys in two flocks were affected by H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in cases confirmed on November 14.
Both of the affected flocks were in California, reported the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). The larger of the two was in Merced County and involved 53,200 turkeys. The other flock was in Fresno County and involved 17,500 turkeys.
California has now had 17 commercial poultry flocks affected by HPAI in 2024. Five of those have been in Merced County and four of them have been in Fresno County.
In terms of bird losses, California has had 5,798,400 head of commercial poultry claimed by the HPAI outbreak in 2024. Only Michigan has lost more birds at 6,724,000.
Other states with losses of commercial poultry in 2024 are Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.
California has also been the state with the most dairy cattle herds affected by the H5N1 virus. According to APHIS, there have been 171 cases in cattle during the past 30 days.
View our continuing coverage of the global avian influenza situation.
To learn more about HPAI cases in commercial poultry flocks in the United States, Mexico and Canada, see an interactive map on WATTPoultry.com.
