Folks, this is a really hard post to write, but I am devastated to tell you that we are closed for 2023.

Our flocks tested positive for HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, aka ‘bird flu’), and all birds were euthanized by the state yesterday, 12/29.

This is a long post, but I'd be grateful if you were up for reading til the end.

We began seeing a dramatic drop in egg production a few weeks ago. Last Wednesday the 21st, we found a bird exhibiting obvious signs of distress. That first sick bird was one of our Founding Feathers, a 7.5 year old Cayuga hen named Ichi.

By Thursday, 12/22, three other hens in the pet flock were also exhibiting signs of illness such as eye/nose discharge, wheezing, and lethargy, so we did the responsible thing and reported the sick birds to the WSDA that morning. An employee contacted us promptly, and the decision was made to come and test the birds right away.

We made ourselves immediately available, rounding up the affected birds in a cage on the barn’s front porch for ease of testing before moving them back to the sick room. This was at the height of the snow, so major props to the employee for coming out despite the weather! We also immediately scheduled an emergency appointment with our vet for the following day, to ensure the birds received the best possible care if test results for HPAI were negative.

Unfortunately, FedEx lost the samples en route to the lab, and no answers were available going into the holiday weekend. Since we remained under a quarantine order, which we’d been assured would be raised immediately if the flock tested negative, we were unable to bring birds to the vet for care. Our vet kindly consulted with us via phone and email, and we began syringe-feeding and injecting the sickest birds with OTC antibiotics per their instructions, but it was very much a shot in the dark. And, of course, none of that would be effective if it was a viral infection.

Over the course of the Christmas weekend, we struggled through many losses. Since everyone wants to head to the farm for a countryside Christmas, we’d planned to host numerous social events throughout the holiday period - but we had to cancel them all as we spent all day and night trying to save these poor birds. Many of our pets passed away in our spare bathtub as we tried desperately to nurse them through the cold nights, the two-day wind and ice storm, and repeated power outages. We lost our very best mother goose on Christmas morning, her daughter the next day. We had to fish a dead drake out from under one of the coops where he’d tried to isolate himself from the flock. We stored the dead bodies in our refrigerator until we finally had to bury them as they’d become too old for testing. We had to cull many suffering birds to spare them at least some pain, burying their beheaded bodies in deep graves alongside their friends in the woods behind the barn.
All in all, it was not a very merry Christmas.

The disease seemed to progress through the flocks one at a time. First the pet flock, where we lost a third of our birds despite our most intense efforts. Then the first production flock, where we lost several good breeders and both of our guard geese. Then our second production flock rolled through the same progression, where again the geese and several beloved ducks passed away in quick succession.

Some birds exhibited minor symptoms and recovered, on their own or with nursing. Sadly, our very best efforts seemed to make very little difference, but we kept trying everything we could. Miraculously, many birds never showed any symptoms at all, remaining perfectly healthy until the end. The only signs of problems were a lack of eggs, and many birds were a bit off their feed for a day or two.

By Tuesday, the pet flock and first production flock were past the worst of it and on their way to recovery. The surviving birds were eating, playing, running, and mating again. And the first sick bird, Ichi, survived – the only bird who exhibited serious symptoms but made it through. She seemed to have long-term neurological damage that gave her an odd heat-tilt, but she was eating, swimming, and giving us a hard time about her medication.

The process of testing still had to be completed, however. The WSDA came back out Wednesday morning to take a fresh round of samples, and since none of us trusted the shipping companies to get them to the lab in time, a series of heroic state employees formed a relay to pass the samples from Monroe to Pullman for testing.

The news finally came back late Wednesday night: the test was positive.

A crew would be out the next morning to kill every bird on the property.

The policy of total eradication is logical, but harsh. No country wants to risk bringing in unhealthy or diseased animal products, so the best way for the US to protect its trade relations is to take a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to high-profile livestock diseases. Any flock of birds that tests positive for HPAI, however large or small, is immediately and completely eliminated.

The risk is that even birds who have recovered may remain carriers of the disease, shedding the virus in their environment where wild birds may pick it up and continue spreading it. Or the farmers themselves may track it to another location on their boots. Or a visiting vehicle might carry out a bit of virus on their tires, driving it down the road to the next farm. Containment is considered too risky, so elimination is the order of the day.

I had hoped that, given the accidental delay in test results and subsequent recovery of some birds, that we could potentially serve as an experimental farm – a place to study what genetics might provide extra disease resistance, observe how long birds shed virus, perhaps even breed naturally resistant birds that could improve the nation’s flocks – but sadly, the vets were not aware of any funding available for projects like that. The decision was made to proceed with euthanasia per normal policy.

I think it’s fair to say that yesterday was one of the worst, if not the worst day of our lives. The staff was kind, polite, punctual, and very generous with their time, and did everything they could under the circumstances to help us through the process. They even brought coffee. Obviously nothing could make it anything other than a horrific experience, but the kindness and generosity of everyone involved has been deeply touching.

The hardest part was, of course, the pet ducks. The survivors, who had mild or no symptoms at all, were active and thriving. I wasn’t sure until that morning whether I would help with their euthanasia, but I finally decided it was the right thing to do. The process would be less stressful with a familiar person catching and handling them.

The WSDA employee was so kind during that time. While I’m sure it only made her job harder, she listened as I told her each bird’s name and relayed a bit of their story.

Ichi, the bird who had survived the infection. Our most beautiful and charming duck, who laid the most beautiful charcoal eggs.
Dos, the hardworking and always even-tempered gal, and the duck who had been fixed with duct tape (she once broke her middle toe somehow, and we covered her splint in duct tape to keep it waterproof)
Trois, my little French hen, the third of our Founding Feathers. Always loud and full of attitude, and healthy as a horse til the very end.
Tim, named by a first grade class, who had been orphaned when her owner’s chickens killed her sibling. She came to us at just 4 weeks old and was immediately adopted by a group of our hens, who mothered her as she grew up and blossomed into a beautiful hen who would jump in the air for a bite of banana.
Bertha, the best mother duck in the whole flock, and the mate of our beloved Annabelle the gander who we had lost to cancer just months earlier. I had promised Annabelle we’d always take the best care of Bertha, and I whispered an apology to him as I handed her over to be killed.
Sandpiper, the last of the Iron Ducks, the birds who survived the horrible shipping accident when we first started this farm, and the post office lost the box of day-old ducklings. Only 11 survived the first night. She got her name as a duckling, when her fluffy body propelled by long stick-like legs made her look like a sandpiper chick. Pipes was the only one of the remaining Iron Ducks who hadn’t gotten ill at all, and she was strong as an ox until the end.
Denise, a beautiful little blonde gal who charmed her way into my heart by following me around Pelican house every single day, demanding treats. I’d always give in eventually and feed her a handful, and only then would she waddle off happily. She probably ate more treats than any other bird on the farm.
Darla, the bird who wasn’t supposed to be there. She kept squeezing through the fence separating the production flock from the pet flock because she’d become best friends with Dennis and Denise, and we finally just let her stay.
Dennis, my favorite hen. Named Dennis the Menace when she first hatched and we didn’t know her sex. Her mother, Ichi, had abandoned the nest just before the eggs were due to hatch, so we hastily threw them in an incubator. Dennis hatched 24 hours before her siblings, and needed constant attention since she was all alone, hence the name. She imprinted firmly on me as a duckling, and her darling face and raspy “HAWNK” will always remain imprinted on my heart in return.

It’s so easy to think of them as just livestock, but to me, it was little different than handing over puppies or kittens to be gassed right there in front of me. I’m sorry, dear reader, to be so blunt, but I desperately want you to know that we loved these birds and did everything we could to keep them happy and healthy.

We tried so hard to keep this disease at bay. Just in the last year, we installed extra netting to ensure wild waterfowl, the primary carriers of the disease, wouldn’t land in our fields. We bought and trained a livestock guardian dog to deter both predators and any wild birds that tried to infiltrate the flock, a job she’s been excellent at. We added a perimeter fence around the entire property to keep the guardian dog in and predators out, since wild carnivores can catch and possibly transmit the disease by consuming sick birds. And we have ALWAYS maintained strong biosecurity measures, like not allowing any visitors in with the birds, quarantining new birds, sterilizing any equipment that left the farm for any reason, and maintaining separate shoes and jackets for use on-farm and off-farm.

We don’t know how the virus arrived here, nor do the vets. Best guess is that some wild duck or goose flying from the Skykomish river to some local pond either dropped in briefly when we weren’t looking, or perhaps just defecated over the fields while flying by. That’s all it takes.

What does the future hold for the farm?
Honestly, we’re not sure. The USDA mandates complete de-population of all bird species for 120 days, so we cannot even begin to rebuild the flock for that long. We cannot raise any other poultry for that period of time, either – so no getting into chickens or turkeys instead.

And, of course, you can’t simply go to the store and buy new ducks off the shelf. A wait of 4 months before we can re-populate, another month for eggs to hatch, and 4-6 months before the young birds are old enough to lay means that we will be completely out of product for a full year.

What’s more, due to the timing, that would mean that any replacement birds wouldn’t mature until November or so of 2023. Ducks that mature in winter don’t begin laying until the days get longer in spring, meaning even if we jumped right back in, we wouldn’t have eggs until March of 2024.

And for all that time we’d still be paying the mortgage, utilities, upkeep on farm buildings and fencing, the LGD’s food and vet bills, and all the feed, bedding, water, electricity, and labor to raise replacement birds. The USDA does compensate farmers for the culled birds, but that’s simply a small one-time payment for the market value of the animals – just a couple grand, in our case.

They do NOT compensate us for the egg washing/packing equipment that is collecting dust, the empty fridges and buildings slowly depreciating, the ton of straw in the loft, or the five tons of layer feed that will spoil long before any new birds are old enough to eat it.

How on earth is a small family farm supposed to operate for a year and a half with all those expenses, losses, and ZERO income? It’s simply not possible.

So this is devastating not only to us personally, but to the business as a whole. And to small farms in general. We are not going to be the first driven out of business by this policy, and it needs to be changed.

Friends, please join us in writing to your local representatives and your local news agencies about this. We will be posting more info on how to help in the coming days.

Thank you for all your support over the last five years. Whatever happens going forward, it’s been a blast, and we’ve loved getting to know you all.
Please keep supporting local farms!