Our Response to The Recent Avian Flu Outbreak
Rescued Cornish hens at Woodstock Sanctuary
There is a recent outbreak of HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) on the East Coast, with confirmed cases close to home here in the Hudson Valley. This virus is very dangerous to domesticated birds like our geese, ducks, and chickens. To protect our 250 feathered residents, we are implementing new protective measures until there's no more risk in our area. Our Shelter Director Hervé put together a detailed protocol to secure safety and limit the risk of contamination as much as possible. This protocol includes assigning the animal caregivers to specific coops for routine care, wearing isolation gear when handling birds or entering coops, meticulous daily cleaning standards, converting one of our buildings to a separate ISO space, and adding protective elements to each individual coop to abstain wildlife from any access (like sparrows flying in to drink water or perch) as wild birds can carry HPAI. We’ve had to order a lot of new tools, supplies, and safety gear—so far we’ve spent over $4,000—and we have to manage this on top of the daily care of all of our residents. Many sanctuaries and rescues are rallying to keep their flocks safe, and we urge anyone with backyard chickens or waterfowl to prepare for this for the well-being and safety of these animals.
We sadly cannot take in any birds until this risk passes as we have no inside space available as our flocks will be kept safely inside for the duration of this outbreak. We are heartbroken to have to shut down intakes but we hope it’ll be short term. Domesticated birds are so vulnerable to diseases like this because of how humans have bred them for profit, so it's our responsibility to keep them as safe as we can. We know you care about them too so we wanted to give you an update. If you visit before we lift this protocol, you sadly won't see birds onsite but hopefully this will be very short term and in the meantime, we are going to be doing everything we can to keep the birds happy inside.
What can you do to help right now?
This emergency is very expensive to us but we don't have an option. We have to keep our over 250 birds safe. If you’d like to give towards the lockdown expenses, Venmo us at Woodstock-Sanctuary or give via our website here.
Share posts like these to spread awareness about avian flu. We will be sharing more very soon about how this is a result of animal agriculture. Animal agriculture causes and spreads pandemics and we are so upset that birds all over are now at risk because of humans desire to farm birds.
Stop supporting animal agriculture and please don’t buy backyard birds or chicks this spring.
Thank you for supporting us through this time. We’re happy to share our protocol with any rescue or sanctuary who is interested. We love chickens so much and will do whatever it takes to keep them safe.
Ida enjoying her pasture