Feedstuffs in Focus

Vaccination debate: Protecting poultry from the bird flu

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Avian influenza has hit Hickman's Family Farm in Arizona, wiping out 6 million egg-laying hens and forcing hundreds of layoffs. But as Glenn Hickman and veterinarian Dr. Kay Russo reveal, this devastating loss might have been preventable.

The current H5N1 virus has evolved in an unprecedented way, jumping from birds to dairy cattle and even back to poultry operations. This complex transmission pattern has created a perfect storm for egg producers, with 28 million of last year's 39 million layer hen losses directly linked to spillover from dairy infections. The result? Americans paid a staggering $11 billion in higher egg prices while taxpayers spent an additional billion on cleanup efforts.

At the heart of this crisis lies a contentious debate between science and trade policy. Egg producers advocate strongly for vaccination, pointing to France's successful program that reduced outbreaks by 90%. Meanwhile, the broiler chicken industry, which exports $4-6 billion annually, resists vaccination due to potential trade repercussions. This standoff continues despite available vaccines that wouldn't affect egg quality or food safety.

"We need to put the politics aside and come up with solutions that allow us to continue to feed people economically," urges Hickman, whose operation faces a 20-month recovery timeline. With empty egg shelves affecting families and food banks nationwide, the question becomes increasingly urgent: should protecting trade agreements take precedence over ensuring a stable domestic food supply?

As fall migration approaches—traditionally a high-risk period for avian influenza—producers anxiously await guidance from USDA on vaccination protocols. The clock is ticking on a crisis that threatens not just individual farms, but America's food security itself.

This episode is brought to you by United Animal Health. For more information on United Animal Health, visit unitedanh.com and discover how they're advancing animal science worldwide.

Sarah Muirhead:

Hickman's Family Farm, based in Buckeye, Arizona, has been forced to lay off hundreds of workers this year after avian influenza wiped out 95% of its egg-laying hens. That's approximately 6 million birds. But did it need to happen? Did that really need to be the situation? But did it need to happen? Did that really need to be the situation?

Sarah Muirhead:

Welcome to Feedstuffs in Focus, our podcast taking a look at the big issues affecting the livestock, poultry grain and animal feed industries. I'm your host, Sarah Muirhead. This episode is sponsored by United Animal Health, a leader in animal health and nutrition. You can learn more about United Animal Health and how they're working to advance animal science worldwide by visiting their website at unitedANH. com. Joining us today to talk about HPAI at Hickman's Family Farm and why perhaps it didn't have to happen, are Glenn Hickman, President and CEO of Hickman's Family Farms, and Dr Kay Russo, a dairy practitioner and board-certified poultry veterinarian with RSM Consulting. RSM Consulting works with Wilson Vet Company and is the veterinarians for Hickman's Poultry. So, Glenn, let's start off with you. Give us an overview of Hickman's Family Farms and how your operation has been impacted by bird flu.

Glenn Hickman:

Certainly We've been in business. This is our 81st year in business. I'm fortunate to be the third generation to be involved in the business. I've got three siblings that work with me every day, and we've got three of the next generation working and managing different parts of the business, and so it's truly is a family business. We've been, you know, concentrated here in Arizona where we have four farms and, you know, associated pullets that go with that and we were kind of rocking along.

Glenn Hickman:

We had had a touch of bird flu at our farm in Maricopa back in November and we were able to, or had to, put down the birds there. It was just under a million birds and we got that farm cleaned and sanitized and restocked and three weeks after the restocking started we got bird flu again. So we did some wildlife surveys around that farm and found that we had pressure in the wildlife vermin, that kind of thing that was outside the farm. So we intentionally decided to wait till the temperature warmed up and not put any more birds at risk down in that Maricopa area. So we started to receive, you know, clean swabs from all the outside and all the animals we could catch, and so we felt pretty confident about putting birds back down in Maricopa, which we started the 1st of May.

Glenn Hickman:

So we felt pretty confident about putting birds back down in Maricopa, which we started the 1st of May. We got 300,000 birds transferred down there, got them situated, started to, you know, move them into their lay cycle. And then on May 16th, the farms we had out west, the three farms there our biggest farm is our Tonopah cage-free facility with just under 4 million chickens farm is our Tonopah cage-free facility with just under 4 million chickens, and we started to notice unusual mortality in two of the barns and on May 16th the swabs came back positive. After that we probably didn't shut down and lock down that farm soon enough, and so I think we probably mechanically transferred it to our other two farms and the Pull soon enough, and so I think we probably mechanically transferred it to our other two farms and the Pullet farms. And so, when it was all said and done, all 6 million chickens and Pullets out West came down with bird flu and we started a multi-week program of depopulation.

Sarah Muirhead:

So, Kay, what do you know so far about how the HPAI spread between farms and I know there's some species spread as well that you may want to address, since you're in both poultry and dairy- so far.

Dr. Kay Russo:

The issue that we're currently dealing with in the outbreak overall started in 2022. And this outbreak involves H5N1, which belongs to the 2344B clade, and so we had significant losses in 2022. 2023 was a bit lighter in terms of losses, but in 2024, we had a situation in which we started to see a disease spreading in dairy cattle in the Southwest United States. That disease ended up being H5N1, which essentially basically gained the function to jump into dairy cattle, which has really convoluted the current issue that we're seeing, because, although the virus itself has variable excuse me degrees of clinical signs and significance on the cattle side, it's still very highly pathogenic to poultry. And so, you know, traditionally poultry, and so you know, traditionally stamping out the virus to stop spread between flocks has been relatively effective. But now that we're seeing this virus move into lots of different animal species, including dairy cattle, which tend to share similar geographies with that of poultry operations, particularly layers and turkeys, it's becoming increasingly harder to control it, and although there's been research that's tried to determine how it's spread between facilities and even between animals on the dairy side, we still don't fully understand how it's moving, and so it makes it very difficult to talk to producers such as Glenn and say, hey, if you do all of these things, then you're more likely to keep this virus off your farm, because at this point we're still kind of shooting in the dark trying to figure out how it's moving. So that's kind of the situation we're in today. It's a very frustrating situation.

Dr. Kay Russo:

We saw last year alone in 2024, the loss of 39 million million layer hens here in the United States. Approximately 28 million of those birds were in association with spillover from dairy infections. This year we are also losing significant numbers of birds. There was an outbreak in the Ohio Indiana area at the start of the year. California lost quite a few flocks near the tail end of 2024 and early 2025. And then, you know, hickman's operation was most recently hit and so it does not look like it's slowing down, which again is stressful, particularly as we look at moving into the fall migration.

Sarah Muirhead:

So are you saying that the avian influenza, the virus, is going from dairy cattle to poultry? Are you seeing that link?

Dr. Kay Russo:

Yes, yep, and like I indicated last year, 28 million out of the 39 million layer hens that were lost due to this virus were associated with dairy infections that spilled back into poultry and unfortunately, in Hickman's case, the virus in regional dairy farms found its way into their farms. So there was a link there as well.

Sarah Muirhead:

So, glenn, it has to be really tough, of course, letting employees go and just for your bottom line, when these things hit, what kind of support is there in terms of, maybe, indemnity programs or financial assistance related to rebuilding and disposal? Has that been of any assistance to you at all?

Glenn Hickman:

You bet. So the you know, because we don't have a choice of. One chicken gets sick, you have to depopulate the entire farm. The government does have an indemnity program set up to offset some of those costs of. They actually offset 100% of the cost of depopulation, cleaning and disinfecting and they partially offset the cost of repopulating the facility. Without that it'd be difficult to have an industry, I think, because you know you've, you know like we'll be. It'll take us 20 months to get back to the same number of chickens that we had prior to the outbreak. So that's a long time to go without a paycheck, and so the government indemnities is very important.

Sarah Muirhead:

Now, this is a pretty controversial issue. When it comes to avian influenza, we talk about vaccination of the birds. In your opinion, Glenn I know you've been fairly outspoken on this Do you see that as a way to minimize the risk associated with?

Glenn Hickman:

avian influenza. Well, sarah, there's no controversy when it comes to vaccination of animals to ward off easily communicable diseases of those animals. That's not controversy. The only controversy we have in this avian flu outbreak is we need to vaccinate our egg-laying hens. And the broiler industry has a different opinion because they, frankly, have been pretty much untouched by avian flu. So I don't, I don't, I don't know whether I am in a position to recommend whether they should or should not vaccinate their chickens. I just know that we should be vaccinating ours and every egg laying operation should vaccinate their birds. We don't have an export market to protect in the egg laying side, you know. So I understand that they protect in the egg laying side. So I understand that the broiler industry does export a lot of chicken and they have a different, maybe a different requirement in terms of what they can and can't do to maintain access to those export markets.

Sarah Muirhead:

Yeah, good point. That's kind of where the controversy comes in, and that trade, export and, like you spelled it out so well, between the broilers and the laying hens. So any thoughts, I mean we have this kind of divide Any thoughts on how that might be bridged?

Glenn Hickman:

you know. I'll let Kay maybe talk about what the implications are. I just know that. You know we have the. The vaccines that are available to us are killed vaccines, which means that we can give them to our chickens, and if there was a broiler farm across the street, there'd be no spread due to the vaccine. And so that's the frustrating part about it, because we do have an excellent tool to stop the spread, lower the viral load and potentially work our way out of this situation. If we started vaccinating chickens tomorrow, we'd still have almost three years of unvaccinated laying hens out there, so it's not something we need to put off at all. We need to start vaccinating today so that we can, you know, achieve some level of protection at some point in the future.

Sarah Muirhead:

Okay, anything to add to that?

Dr. Kay Russo:

Certainly so. As Glenn alluded to, the barrier to vaccinating laying hens and potentially turkeys in this country is trade, and the broiler industry exports between $4 to $6 billion worth of product every year.

Dr. Kay Russo:

And in utilizing vaccination in this country, even if we aren't vaccinating broilers, it puts those trade agreements at risk.

Dr. Kay Russo:

And so, ultimately, this is a question of policy versus science, and what will be necessary is to, in order to mitigate that fallout to the broiler industry, is to go in and renegotiate those trade agreements with some of our key partners that accept the broiler industry, is to go in and renegotiate those trade agreements with some of our key partners that accept those broiler products, and in such a way that if we were to start vaccinating laying hens, that it's not going to impact that. And so, ultimately, I think we're at the juncture where we need additional tools, because this virus has evolved to start to infect so many different hosts that our ability to keep it out of these complexes is becoming basically insurmountable with the current tools we have. If it were just circulating, potentially in wild birds, like it's been traditionally, then perhaps we could continue down the road of simply stamping out, but at this point I think we need additional tools and ultimately, in veterinary medicine, those tools are vaccination.

Sarah Muirhead:

So what about the cost associated with vaccinating? Have you given that an estimate or how do you feel that would impact your operation, glenn?

Glenn Hickman:

Well, that's where the common financial sense get thrown out the window.

Glenn Hickman:

You know we have different diseases we vaccinate for right now, and this particular vaccine can be mixed in with some of those that we already administer. So there's literally no extra cost in administering the vaccine. The extra cost comes in buying the vaccine, and if you're going to vaccinate 300 million baby chicks a year, which is on the high side, then that might cost you $30 million. And while that sounds like a big number, it's a rounding number, a rounding error, when compared to the amount of extra money that American consumers paid in higher egg prices. They paid $11 billion in higher egg prices last year. The American consumer is also known as the American taxpayer, and they spent a billion dollars on cleanups, just like ours. So with a simple annual spend of about $30 million, we can pretty much control the volatility of the egg prices and make sure that this vaccine doesn't continue or this disease, rather, doesn't continue to to spread and mutate and possibly come become something that is a genie we can't put back in the bottle.

Sarah Muirhead:

So okay, here's a question that's come in from our audience. Would would vaccinating dairy cows potentially help with avian influenza control in poultry, especially when you've got these dairies and poultry operations located nearby each other? Is that anything that can be done in that regard?

Dr. Kay Russo:

Yes. So, going back to Glenn's point, ultimately controlling this virus in animal populations is going to be a way to reduce risk to humans because this is a zoonotic virus Relating to vaccinating dairy cattle. There are two separate vaccines that are currently in the pipeline, waiting for both conditional approval, or licensing, as we call it, and then you know, once that is accomplished, then the USDA says okay, you can now use this in the field. Because we're seeing the degree of spillover that we are from dairy cattle to poultry, it certainly makes sense to implement vaccination in order to reduce that viral load and with that reduce the risk of spread off those farms to neighboring poultry, to wildlife and, let's remember, this is a zoonotic virus, so to those individuals that are working with those animals, working with those animals.

Dr. Kay Russo:

Now, I did want to bring up, as you asked about cost, that certainly part of the cost of vaccination for highly pathogenic avian influenza is the vaccine itself. But one of the other hurdles that we will have to overcome is that of surveillance, and surveillance is important because when we vaccinate birds they are much less likely to show any signs of illness as compared to unvaccinated, which we see a lot of mortality as a triggering event for us to test for this virus, and so it's imperative that not only we have a solid vaccination plan, but a surveillance plan to find the virus when it does infect vaccinated flocks, because that's going to be the key to keeping trade open and our broiler friends happy, so that we can in fact use this vaccine here as a tool.

Sarah Muirhead:

A good point. What about?

Dr. Kay Russo:

you know, we always need to address the point of food security, Any issues, anything we need to be aware of when it comes to avian influenza or even the vaccination of these birds went to the grocery store in the last 12 months, saw bare shelves in the egg section and, as we look at affordable protein sources in the world, eggs are perhaps the most affordable protein for families not just American families all across the world, and this year was unlike any other, seeing those empty shelves. Food banks experienced shortages in eggs that they often offer to individuals that frequent them, families that can't afford protein, and so we are currently in a situation where food security is at risk. Here in the United States Now a lot of people.

Dr. Kay Russo:

There's this anti-vaccination sentiment that seems to be circulating presently, an anti-RNA vaccine sentiment as well. The vaccines that are currently conditionally or fully licensed here in the United States are recombinant vaccines that we would utilize at the hatchery, so these aren't RNA vaccines and then killed vaccines, like Glenn alluded to, that we would use in the field, and so this should have no effect on the food quality, the egg quality, anything like that that would impact the consumer that is consuming them. But ultimately, if we are to stabilize and reduce this sort of yo-yo that we see in egg availability due to this disease, I think it is going to be important that we employ vaccine technologies to get in front of it.

Sarah Muirhead:

You mentioned, Kay, that there's an effort underway to put a framework for vaccination in place. Any idea when that might become public or there might be push through? Do you have any timeline on that?

Dr. Kay Russo:

Yep. So the United Egg Producers and the American Egg Board pulled together a group of experts on avian flu this included folks like Dr David Swain, who is a world expert on avian influenza and they put together their recommendations for vaccine protocol and surveillance for avian influenza here in the United States and presented that to the USDA. It is my understanding that the USDA is reviewing that right now and I think the National Turkey Federation, the NTF, also layered on their input. Okay, it's my understanding. It's currently under review. I think we were meant to hear something back in July. We have not yet heard anything back and, like Glenn indicated, before we move into this fall, migration producers and veterinarians would really like a plan in which we can start to utilize vaccine in order to basically increase the immunity of these phloxes as we place them and as we move into the highest risk period. I'm glad I don't know if you have anything to add.

Sarah Muirhead:

Yeah, anything to add to that, Glenn?

Glenn Hickman:

You know I want to get back to your maybe comment about food security. So we did have an egg shortage around the first year and to kind of illustrate how this is a political problem and not an animal health challenge, when we had our most dire shortages, our USDA lowered our phytosanitary standards and brought in eggs from Mexico, which did have the effect of kind of plugging that gap. We're still bringing those eggs in today. Mexico is one of the countries that vaccinates for avian influenza. Mexico also says that you know they have concerns about importing chicken meat from broilers that have been vaccinated for influenza and the effect of moving all those hundreds of loads from Mexico into the US had the effect of lowering the US egg price and raising the egg price in Mexico. So when you look at that, we just all we did was shift the burden around a little bit, but there still wasn't enough eggs. So we need to, we really need to put the politics aside and come up with solutions that allow us to continue to feed people economically. And so you know, as long as we're keep shuffling our feet and trying to try not to offend somebody and trying to make sure that you know everybody's needs are taken care of like that we're going to have. We're going to have challenges. So you know, our challenge right now is K alluded to we.

Glenn Hickman:

A dairy made our birds sick. Our birds made another dairy sick. We depopulated, we've cleaned it all up. We got baby chicks in a week ago, wednesday, and the dairy that we made sick that's two miles from us. You know they. It takes anywhere between 30 and 90 days for the virus to run its course through a dairy. So for the next 60 days we're going to be holding our breath, hoping that the virus we gave the dairy doesn't come back to reinfect our baby chicks. So it's a mess, but it's a solvable mess if we would just put you know. Health issues first.

Sarah Muirhead:

Okay, any final thoughts to leave our audience with here today.

Dr. Kay Russo:

I would encourage folks to take a look at what France has done. They're a very nice example of how utilizing effective vaccines against H5 can significantly reduce outbreaks. They started vaccinating their birds in October of 2023, and they did take some hits on their export market, but they basically went through an exercise and decided it is more important to them to reduce these outbreaks than to maintain those exports, and over the last couple of years they've been able to reduce the percentage of farms that became infected with H5 by over 90%. So a really nice example of utilizing technology, and this is not an insurmountable issue, but we will continue to experience losses if we aren't given additional tools, given how complex this viral ecology has become.

Sarah Muirhead:

Glenn, any final comments to leave our audience with from you?

Glenn Hickman:

Well, I just want to say I think all poultry producers have stepped up their biosecurity game to almost ridiculous standards. You know, everybody that goes into a barn gets showered in. Everybody that penetrates a fence line gets their vehicle washed at least a couple times. Rates of fence line gets their vehicle washed at least a couple times. We're doing what we can, but this virus, when it's in the environment and from you know kind of the spread to other species means that it's going to come in airborne and that's not something we can guard against. So we need to say this virus isn't going to come and go with our seasonal waterfowl migrations. We've just got to figure out it's going to be ever present, it's always going to be on our fence line and we need to figure out a way to combat that and vaccination is that way.

Sarah Muirhead:

Very good. Glenn Kay, thank you so much for joining us here today and sharing your insight. I think it's been a fascinating discussion. Appreciate it.

Glenn Hickman:

Thank you for the opportunity.

Sarah Muirhead:

This episode has been sponsored by United Animal Health, a leader in animal health and nutrition. You can learn more about United Animal Health and how they're working to advance animal science worldwide by visiting their website at unitedanhcom. I'm Sarah Muirhead and you've been listening to Feedstuffs In Focus. If you would like to hear more conversations about some of the big issues affecting the livestock, poultry, grain and animal feed industries, subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast channel. Until next time, have a great day and thank you for listening.