The Wyoming Livestock Board, under advisement from the Wyoming Veterinary Lab, has canceled all poultry shows for the next 120 days.
What this means:
-There can be no poultry shows at local county fairs 2022
-There will be no poultry show at the Wyoming State Fair 2022
-No private shows or exhibitions
-4-H project learning can still continue, but there can be no intermingling of birds from different flocks.
According to the University of Wyoming Extension Office, the Livestock Board will reevaluate the situation in May in hopes the spread of the disease has been contained at that time.
The UW Extension office staff are already devising ways to keep the children who may have shown poultry this year engaged with opportunities to display what they have learned and working so hard on through the year.
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) is a contagious viral disease that can infect poultry, including chickens, turkeys, pheasants, quail, ducks, geese, and guinea fowl, and is carried by free flying waterfowl, such as ducks, geese, and shorebirds.
The disease can cause high mortality rates in domestic flocks. As of April 8, 2022, HPAI has been detected in commercial and backyard poultry and game bird operations in half of the states in the U.S., including five premises within Wyoming.
Due to the increased risk of HPAI spread within Wyoming poultry, game bird, and wild bird populations, increased biosecurity is of the utmost importance.
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Last modified: April 20, 2022