B.C. farmer devastated to cull 30,000 hens after bird flu outbreak

The Current19:46What you need to know about the bird flu case in B.C.

An egg farm in B.C. fell victim to an outbreak of avian influenza earlier this month, leaving the farmer no choice but to cull his entire flock of about 30,000 hens. 

"These are birds I've raised since they were a day old," said Mark Siemens, who runs Siemens Farms in Abbotsford, B.C.

"At the end of depopulation day, you're looking at an empty farm."

Canadian farmers have been dealing with H5N1 avian flu since the spring of 2022, leading to the culling of millions of birds. 

A B.C. teenager is currently in critical condition with avian flu, in what's believed to be the first domestically acquired case of H5N1 avian influenza in Canada. While the source of the infection is unknown, Health Canada said the risk of human infection remains low. 

WATCH | B.C. teen in critical condition with avian flu:

Teen has Canada’s 1st presumptive human H5N1 avian flu case

21 days ago

Duration 2:42

A B.C. teen is being treated in hospital for a presumptive case of the H5N1 strain of avian flu, the first known case contracted in Canada. Officials are working to find the source of exposure and follow up with any contacts. Correction: A previous caption for this video incorrectly described the first domestically acquired case of Avian Influenza. It is in fact the first case of someone acquiring the H5N1 strain of the virus in Canada. There were cases of the H7N3 strain acquired in B.C.'s Fraser Valley in 2004.

Siemens spoke to The Current's Matt Galloway about the financial and emotional toll of having to cull his entire flock. Here is part of their conversation. 

Tell me about some of the signs that you first noticed in your chickens when this outbreak began. 

We in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia faced this disease for several years in a row now. So when I went into my barn — which the previous day had looked completely healthy — and saw that a lot of the birds seemed to have irritation in their eyes, [I] quickly called the sick bird line and got my birds tested to see what was going on. And unfortunately, it came back positive for the avian influenza disease.

So we started down … the difficult journey of first of all, watching the birds immediately deteriorate and get incredibly sick over the course of 24 hours. And then inevitably and quite quickly had the [Canadian Food Inspection Agency] on site and ready to depopulate the farm. 

Depopulate means that you had to cull the flock. Tell me a little bit about how many birds you lost. 

I've got 30,000 free-range laying hens. And yeah, that whole farm had to be cleared right out. 

You've described this as devastating. 

It certainly is. This is our livelihood. And not only that, you know, we farm because we love taking care of the animals. And we take a ton of pride in it. These are birds I've raised since they were a day old and we're in there as a family every day taking care of them.

At the end of depopulation day you're looking at an empty farm which [is] something that never happens. We never have all of our barns empty. It's just kind of a big shock to us as a family to go through. 

What do you know about what may have caused the outbreak on the farm? 

It's the migratory season for all the wild birds. So they have been really heavy in the area.

What we all observe is that during migratory bird season, when there is a heavy windstorm, we will often see several farms test positive five, six, seven days later.

And it seems to be an ongoing challenge that we face here in the Fraser Valley due to how much migratory bird activity we see during October, November and into December. 

What is it like as a farmer? I mean, knowing that that's an existence that can often be on a knife edge of profitability or not having money coming in. What is it like to live with this thing in the shadows? 

Thankfully it's a tight-knit community of farmers and we stay in touch with each other. The farmers who go down, we're going through a devastating time.

But then our neighbours who are trying to remain vigilant as much as possible and every day are living with this anxiety of going into their barn one morning and seeing the symptoms. It's a very, very high stress time, incredibly difficult.

We all kind of breathe a sigh of relief once we get to the end of [migratory] bird season and there's seven to 10 days of quiet and no more positive farms. 

And hopefully those who got through it can enjoy Christmas. It's just crazy what this disease has become in the wild bird population compared to what we were used to in the past. 

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Financially, how do you recover from something like this? Is there help for you to recover from the cost of culling those birds? 

Thankfully the federal government has a compensation program, so they will reimburse for the value of the birds that were in the barn. It's still a gigantic hit as we are left covering all of the cleaning and disinfection fees and you still have no income for however long it takes for you to get started. 

So it's still a huge hit, but thankfully that compensation keeps us going.