I was having an argument about bird flu with my mom

[XemaSab]

She says that when I bring home a roadkilled wild bird, I am exposing the household to bird flu.

I say we are in greater danger from the chicken she buys at the grocery store.

Thoughts? Ideas?

[MissB]

1. Play with the roadkill for a few days

and see what happens.

[GrumpyGreg]

2. I wouldn't want a road-killed bird brought home by my son

even if the bird was healthy when it was killed.

[XemaSab]

3. But what about wild birds versus factory farmed birds?

I say Foster Farms is FAR more likely to have something nasty.

[GrumpyGreg]

8. You are probably right---the cramped,awful way those poor birds

are caged makes them easy prey for a virus.

What short,miserable lives they have to endure.

[alphafemale]

15. Short, miserable life. About 6 weeks from peep to table.

Thanks to growth hormones.

Scary isn't it?

[GrumpyGreg]

22. No wonder kids have many unexplained things like autism and

ADHD today.

I buy all my meat at Whole Foods for that reason--free range,no additives etc.

[alphafemale]

10. Wild birds may have migrated.

And don't assume something is "roadkill" because it's dead beside a road.

Also illness could have played a part in a bird flying into a vehicle.

Chickens are tested fairly regular I think.

[XemaSab]

18. I think I can assume this was roadkill

I found it in the middle of the lane and I had to swerve to avoid hitting it myself. :D

You're right about migratory birds, but I personally suspect that we're just as likely to see problems from the international bird trade as from migratory birds.

[Kali]

26. a couple days of diarhea vs pretty high mortality rate for flu

stick with chicken

[kestrel91316]

4. Neither one currently poses ANY risk to you if you are in the US.

We don't HAVE H5N1 in North America yet. When it finally DOES reach the continent, handling wild birds (dead or alive) would probably considered high risk behavior. If it gets into our poultry, the chicken farms will be "depopulated" on a massive scale, and I don't think there will BE any chicken in the stores to worry about. But if there is, proper safe food-handling techniques should suffice.

If it hits here, the CDC and USDA will have public information on safety issues.

[XemaSab]

9. I really don't trust the government

But you're right, it hasn't been discovered yet, but when it is, why shouldn't Patient 0 be a wild Turkey living in Lake County, California? ;)

[kestrel91316]

17. I bet it turns up in waterfowl, or pigeons, or starlings first. All that

urban overcrowding.........or maybe they will find it in Canada first, then here. It's going to come by the northern route, in migratory birds, they suspect.

[XemaSab]

19. I think waterfowl or shorebirds

A lot of shorebirds nest in dense colonies in the high arctic. Some of them winter in Asia, and some winter in North America. The same is true for waterfowl.

:shrug:

[kestrel91316]

23. OMG, maybe seagulls???? Aren't they carrion eaters/scavengers?

[XemaSab]

29. I'd be happy to blame the gulls

They are scavengers, they prey on baby birds of other species, and they're tough to identify.

SO let's blame the gulls! :D

[soothsayer]

5. why are you bringing home roadkilled birds? what do you do

with them? what kinds of birds get run over?

[XemaSab]

11. I usually donate them to the museum

And I've found ALL KINDS of birds run over... all the way from egrets to goldfinches. :shrug:

[YouthInAsia]

6. One cant catch bird flu from COOKED chicken. Maybe if

you ate it raw, but who would do that. I wouldnt bring random dead birds into my house. If one DID die of bird flu, by handling it you might just get it.

[XemaSab]

14. She brings raw chicken meat into the house

It's almost impossible to keep all the germs off of surfaces in the kitchen when preparing meats.

[YouthInAsia]

25. worry abou that when (if) bird flu comes to this country.

Until then, youre safe.

[Kali]

28. eh, clorox is your friend.

dilute in a spray bottle - kills most anything. Hell plain old soap and hot water kills most.

[XemaSab]

30. Spraying clorox all over the kitchen during dinner prep

would scare me as much as the chicken itself. :P

[Kali]

32. easy - don't get raw chicken all over the kitchen in the first place

I always do meat and chicken prep in the same easy-to-clean spot and I try to do it last so that I have already cut or chopped all the vegs and such first. Cleanup is pretty straighttforward.

Check on safe handling techniques from whatever museums you are donating to.

[originalpckelly]

7. Most chickens in the US

are housed in enclosed structures and would have a low likelihood of having bird flu. The enclosures have special practices now in place to prevent an outbreak. All birds will be culled at the infected facility, and the government will reimburse the chickens owners for their loss. If they don't come forward it will actually be worse than good for them. Their chickens will die anyway. It is ironic but all free-range and organic chickens will probably be the first to be infected. Let us all hope it doesn't mutate for a while. Of course with all the dingle berry's actually mutating the thing it may accidentally get out. Let's just hope they don't screw up.

[Warpy]

12. Lay off the roadkill, willya?

You can never be quite sure it didn't die of bird flu. It's best to leave it alone.

Poultry workers are most at risk from chickens. The virus lives deep in the lungs and isn't spread like the upper respiratory flu we're used to. I'd be very careful to wash my hands and all cutting surfaces after I handle raw chicken, but once it's cooked, it's going to be OK.

In any case, it's not here in North America quite yet, although it probably will be within a few more months as infected birds migrate from Africa up to Canada.

[XemaSab]

20. Africa to Canada?

:shrug:

[Warpy]

31. It's one of the migration routes.

[XemaSab]

35. For what birds?

:shrug:

[NNN0LHI]

13. Just one question. Why would you bring home a roadkilled wild bird?

Collect them?

Don

[XemaSab]

21. Sort of

I usually donate them to the science museum where they get stuffed....

But in the interim, they live in my freezer.

[alphafemale]

24. Suddenly...my teen boy collecting used bikes and parts of bikes

and working on repairing them.

Seems much less perplexing. :D

[NNN0LHI]

27. I think I would be more concerned with West Nile Virus right now

116 deaths just in the USA from that alone last year. There hasn't been that many fatalities from bird flu worldwide since the first recorded death from that several years ago.

I can understand your curiosity with birds too by the way. I went pheasant hunting once about thirty years ago and after shooting one I was startled by the beauty of the creature I was holding. I wished I could have reversed killing it and had brought it back to life. Never went hunting again after that.

Don

[Kali]

33. 116 deaths out of how many infected?

The bird flu is much more potentially dangerous - also you don't get West nile from birds directly - mosquitos are the transmitters to humans.

[NNN0LHI]

34. Here are the statistics for West Nile Virus from the CDC for last year

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/surv&controlCaseCount05_detailed.htm


Here is how the CDC recommends handling dead birds:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/qa/wnv_birds.htm

West Nile Virus and Dead Birds

Q. What should I do if I find a dead bird?
A. Check with with your local or state health department for instructions on reporting and diposing of a dead bird. If you need to pick up a dead bird, or local authorities tell you to simply dispose of it: Avoid bare-handed contact with any dead animals, and use gloves or an inverted plastic bag to place the bird carcass in a garbage bag and dispose of it with your routine trash.


Q. Do birds infected with West Nile virus die or become ill?
A. In the 1999 New York area epidemic, there was a large die-off of American crows. Since then, West Nile virus has been identified in more than 200 species of birds found dead in the United States. Most of these birds were identified through reporting of dead birds by the public.


Q. How can I report a sighting of dead bird(s) in my area?
A. State and local health departments start collecting reports of dead birds at different times in the year. Some wait until the weather becomes warm before initiating their surveillance (disease monitoring) program. For information about reporting dead birds in your specific area, please contact your state or local health department.


Q. Why do some areas stop collecting dead birds?
A. Some states and jurisdictions are no longer collecting dead birds because they have sufficiently established that the virus is in an area, and additional testing will not reveal any more information. Shifting resources away from testing of dead birds allows those resources to be devoted elsewhere in surveillance and control.

[tocqueville]

16. tell your mom

that the few cases of ACTUAL bird flu (the lethal one) in mainland Europe have resulted so far :

a dead cat
1000 Turkeys slaughtered

nobody is even thinking about it here, nowadays. The spring bird migration is going for full and no new cases have been reported.

The quarantine and other measures have shown being very efficient and the infection never left the originating farm.

The chicken she buys at the grocery store is probably full of salmonella, listeria, resistant e-coli, antibiotics, hormones and pesticides. The bacterial stuff is mostly killed during the cooking, the rest goes into her fat tissues, liver, kidneys and sexual organs...