Weekly livestock news: April 11, 2022

USDA considers poultry vaccination to prevent bird flu outbreaks

USDA is considering vaccines as a way to protect poultry against bird flu, the agency’s chief veterinary officer, Rosemary Sifford, told Reuters. The country is seeing its worst outbreak since 2015, and supporters say vaccines could help keep poultry alive, prevent financial loss and control food costs. Vaccines wouldn’t be able to stop the current bird flu outbreak, which has wiped out 22 million chickens and turkeys in commercial flocks since February. The United States, which is the world’s second-largest poultry meat exporter, has been resistant to vaccines due to worries that importers will ban U.S. poultry shipments because they can’t distinguish infected birds from vaccinated ones. But Sifford said USDA is studying the potential for a vaccine that could be distinguished from the wild type of virus spread to poultry.

Bird flu confirmed in Texas commercial pheasant flock

USDA has confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza in a commercial pheasant flock in Texas, the state’s first outbreak this year. The farm, located in Erath County, in the central part of the state about 100 miles southwest of Dallas, had 1,600 birds. With this outbreak, 25 states have now reported avian flu in poultry flocks this year, and 22.8 million birds have died as a result, CIDRAP reports.

Putin warns of global food crisis due to Western sanctions

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country must closely watch its exports to hostile countries because sanctions from Western nations had sparked a global food crisis and rising energy prices. Higher energy prices combined with a shortage of fertilizers would prompt the West to print money to buy up supplies, leading to food shortages among poorer countries, Putin said. “In these current conditions, a shortage of fertilizers on the global market is inevitable,” he said at a meeting on developing food production. “We will have to be more careful about food supplies abroad, especially carefully monitor the exports to countries which are hostile to us.” One of Putin’s allies recently warned that Russia could limit supplies of agriculture products only to “friendly” countries in the face of Western sanctions, Reuters reports.

New SoundByte: Tulissin

Tulissin (tulathromycin injection) begins working in minutes to treat and control bovine respiratory disease in high-risk cattle, according to manufacturer Virbac. The single shot concentrates in the most susceptible areas of the respiratory system, Virbac says in the SoundByte in Veterinary Advantage. Tulissin is available in concentrations of 100 mg/mL and 25 mg/mL.

Oklahoma grant program aims to help food animal veterinarians improve operations

A new program in Oklahoma will award $15,000 grants to food animal veterinarians to improve their operations, KFOR reports. Ten grants will be awarded to recipients to use “to increase productivity and mitigate gaps,” according to the state’s Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry. The grants aren’t allowed to be used for personnel or vehicle costs, according to the program page. Applications are due May 5.

Federal payments to livestock producers affected by drought or wildfire in 2021 will begin shortly: USDA

Eligible producers who lost land last year due to severe drought or wildfire will soon begin receiving emergency relief payments for increases in supplemental feed costs, USDA announced. This is part of the Farm Service Agency’s new Emergency Livestock Relief Program, which includes $10 billion in assistance to producers affected by wildfire, drought, hurricane, winter storms and certain other disasters in 2020 and 2021. “In order to deliver much-needed assistance as efficiently as possible, phase one of the ELRP will use certain data from the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP), allowing USDA to distribute payments within days to livestock producers,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. More information on who’s eligible in the first phase of payments is available in the announcement from USDA.