By Tom Polansek<\/p>\n
CHICAGO, Feb 27 (Reuters) \u2013 Bird flu has wiped out 7.4 million chickens in Pennsylvania in the past month, a swift and devastating loss that veterinarians and industry members suspect may be linked to an unusually cold winter.<\/p>\n
Infections \u200bof flocks raised to produce eggs and meat extend a U.S. outbreak \u200cthat began four years ago and has eliminated 196 million birds nationwide. The virus, often spread by wild birds, has also infected U.S. farm workers and poultry and mammals across the planet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are obviously in crisis mode,\u201d Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said at a public forum this week, noting that cases were occurring \u201cdramatically \u200cearlier \u200bin the season than what we expected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wild birds, including snow \u2060geese, that spent the winter \u2060in Pennsylvania were suspected to be the source of outbreaks in poultry, Shannon Powers, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, said in an email.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania is the fourth-largest egg-producing state.<\/p>\n
FRIGID TEMPERATURES<\/p>\n
Unusually frigid weather was thought to have sent wild birds away from \u200brivers and ponds that froze and toward farms, said Dr. Megan Lighty, a veterinarian at Penn State University. Though the flu is fatal for poultry, some wild birds carry \u2060the virus without dying.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe theory is that they were \u2060looking for sources of food and may have ventured closer to \u200bfarms than they normally would,\u201d Lighty said on Friday, noting she could not confirm that happened.<\/p>\n
Most \u200blosses have occurred about an hour west of Philadelphia in Lancaster County, \u200cwhere farms are densely packed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had birds in this area maybe a little bit earlier than we normally would have had,\u201d said Chris Herr, executive vice president of Pennsylvania agribusiness association PennAg, referring to wild birds.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some cases, they got stuck here. They were looking for \u2060open water.\u201d<\/p>\n
FARMS REPORT OUTBREAKS<\/p>\n
The highest risk periods for the virus to infect poultry flocks have historically been in spring and fall, when wild waterfowl migrate.<\/p>\n
In 2025, Pennsylvania\u2019s first commercial case of \u2060the year came in February, \u200cand it was the state\u2019s first outbreak in more than a \u2060year, according to U.S. government data. This year, a farm with \u200b1.5 million \u200cegg-laying hens reported an infection in late January after a \u200bcommercial duck \u2060farm tested positive in December 2025.<\/p>\n
All birds are culled at infected farms, and Pennsylvania farms with more than 7 million birds have reported outbreaks since January 28, according to U.S. data.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf things are this bad now, once spring migration starts and we\u2019ve got more birds moving through the area \u2026 my gut feeling is it\u2019s probably going to get worse,\u201d Lighty said.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Tom \u200bPolansekEditing by Rod Nickel)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Tom Polansek CHICAGO, Feb 27 (Reuters) \u2013 Bird flu has wiped out 7.4 million chickens in Pennsylvania…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-125719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-pennsylvania","9":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","10":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}