US: Increase in bird flu cases affects food industry at an alarming rate

More than 1.3 million chickens are being slaughtered at an Ohio egg farm as bird flu continues to take its toll on the industry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the farm's 1.35 million chickens in Union County, Ohio, will be culled to help limit the spread of the highly contagious virus after a case was confirmed in the flock this week. The outbreak that began in early 2022 has been much less severe this year as fewer cases of the virus are being detected among the wild birds that spread it. Still, 8.1 million birds have been culled this year in order to control the spread of the disease and 5.8 million were recorded this month alone, when several large egg farms have been affected. That includes 1.2 million birds at an Iowa egg farm and another 940,000 chickens at a Minnesota egg farm that had to be euthanized. Egg farms tend to be much larger than turkey or chicken farms, sometimes with millions of birds. That's largely why Iowa (the nation's largest egg-producing state) ...