October 11 update from the Minnesota Board of Animal Health: HPAI confirmed in Meeker County turkey flock
Please refer to the MBAH for up-to-date information and resources in other languages.
Guidelines to reduce avian flu for backyard flock and commercial flock owners:
- Minimize, prevent and eliminate any contact you or your birds have with wild waterfowl.
- Report sick or unusually high deaths of flocks to the Minnesota Board of Animal Health.
- Report dead waterfowl to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (5 or more birds in one place) at 888-646-6367.
- Report injured or sick raptors to the University of Minnesota Raptor Center.
- Feeding birds in feeders is okay! Songbirds still are not known to be reservoirs of avian influenza.
Report sick or dead domestic or wild birds to the Minnesota Board of Animal Health by calling the Minnesota Avian Influenza Hotline at 833-454-0156 or submitting a report online. They will make sure that the appropriate agency responds.
There are 205 known cases of mammals contracting HPAI, likely from eating infected birds. All of these mammals have been wild animals. Minnesota has had 11 cases reported, including 9 red fox in multiple counties, one skunk and a black bear (as of October 2023). These are significant new findings that didn’t occur in the 2015 outbreak.
