wild ducks

I fell into discussion with several  of my cousins, one a retired farmer, one a feed mill employee, all of us from a farm background.  The topic was the difference between the reaction of the wild duck population to the bird flu when compared with the response of infected turkey flocks.  Presumably the flu has killed a few of the wild ducks, though I have seen no proof of that.  Meanwhile it is decimating the turkeys.  Why?  I have heard no indication that the turkey species is more susceptible than the duck species, though it could be.  Failing that kind of difference, we are left with environment as an explanation.  And it is a plausible one.  Think of it.  Immunity, as we know, is built from exposure to the infective agent by a healthy and strong immune response system.  If the exposed organisms are in good health, the flu will kill a few.  Another proportion of them will become carriers.  But if the organism is not healthy to begin with, epidemic results. 

From this we might assume that the turkeys are not healthy and strong.  And we can ask why.  In a domestic animal, the answers come from two areas: feed and housing.  And this is not meant to pick on the turkey growers only.  The hog herds in the area are regularly decimated with PRRS and PEDs. We have had PRRS twice in the last twenty years and it appears to be circling pretty close again.  These are very real questions, and lest anyone think they can or should be used merely as a polemic against the farmers, we should remember that bird flu, and its correlate swine flu (not PRRS) are known to mutate into types that infect the human population.  This is nothing to play with.

We need to be asking serious questions of ourselves.  For farmers:  Is our management everything it should be?  And for all of us:  Must we really have meat as cheap as turkey is?  Cheapness is always achieved by means of shortcuts, in farming as in industry. 

 Jim