As bird flu sweeps across U.S. even small, backyard flocks are at risk

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Exposing the Big Game's avatarThe Extinction Chronicles

Harvest Public Media | ByKatie Peikes

PublishedApril 19, 2022 at 5:20 AM CDT

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Leah Shaffer, of St. Charles, picks up Gertie, her 1-year-old Barred Rock Chicken, on Monday, April 4, 2022, outside of her home in St. Charles, Mo. Shaffer purchased four chickens to care for at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Leah Shaffer picks up Gertie, her 1-year-old Barred Rock chicken, on April 4, outside of her home in St. Charles. Shaffer purchased four chickens to care for at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

In fall 2020, Leah Shaffer ordered four chickens from a Missouri hatchery — a pandemic impulse purchase to get her two children outside, she said.

“I wanted them to have a reason to go out basically into the backyard and just have some real life sort of experience with nature instead of just computer time,” said Shaffer, who lives in St. Charles, Missouri.

The four hens — Gertie, Jeff, Cherry and Rivers Cuomo — have been very healthy. They’re energetic. And they’re laying eggs.

But ahighly pathogenic avian fluis sweeping across the country, reaching commercial…

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