Large outbreaks of avian flu are hitting the United States, causing Canadians to take precautionary measures.
At Long Lane Farms in Renfrew County, owner Kristen Wagner says the threat of wild birds carrying the bird flu virus is quickly approaching.
“The biggest concern for us right now is the migratory bird season as the birds are coming back into Canada in the spring and leaving again in the fall,” Wagner said.
Outbreaks at U.S. farmers have killed more than 150 million birds in the last three years.
In Canada as of Feb. 21, roughly 14.5 million birds have been impacted by the recent outbreak of avian flu, with more than half the cases coming in British Columbia.
“It’s close to a third of our annual revenue,” Wagner said.
“We pour our hearts and souls into 2,500 chickens every year and then 50 turkeys over the summer. It could potentially be absolutely devastating.”
As members of the Chicken Farmers of Ontario, Wagner says Long Lanes Farms, along with all other registered farms in the province, adhere to biosecurity measures to prevent contamination within chicken coups.
“We don’t allow anyone into the barns with our chickens,” she says.
“We typically don’t even allow people into the barns with our other animals. And then once they are out on pasture, again, we just minimize the people coming around them.”
The recent outbreak has also led to Canada’s first ever human case of bird flu, where a 13-year-old girl in British Columbia was hospitalized from November to January.
“As of February of 2025, we’ve only documented one human case of avian influenza in the country,” said infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch.
“In the United States, there’s been almost 70 human cases documented to date.”
The outbreaks have led Canada’s Public Health Agency to procure 500,000 avian flu vaccines.
Bogoch says the move is precautionary but proactive, as bird flu has the potential to create epidemics or pandemics.
“For the general public who doesn’t work with poultry or work in a lab with this virus, the risk of this infection as of February 2025 is negligible,” Bogoch said.
As outbreaks wipe out poultry coups across the United States, consumers south of the border are also feeling the effects, with shortages in products in grocery stores.
“We’re absolutely seeing it in the U.S. right now,” Wagner said.
“Egg prices, I want to say, they’re close to $12 a dozen and that’s because they have gone in and they have culled hundreds of thousands of chickens because of outbreaks.”
