keccers
@keccers.eth
EGG SHORTAGE CURRENT STATUS RFK Jr has seeded the idea that we can let bird flu just rip through chicken flocks — the thinking is we will find the immune birds that way, and he is opposed to culling because that's how you get animal-to-human bird flu cases. The Ag Sec seems bought into this; she claims she knows farmers bought into this as well. Meanwhile public health officials say that this idea is bad, in part because there's not enough genetic diversity at these farms to have it make sense, and in part because it will explode the odds that the virus mutates to a form that allows for human to human transmission https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/health/kennedy-bird-flu.html Independently of what's decided on culling, Initial biosecurity improvements are underway in 10 states but it will take months before those changes have meaningful effects
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Omar
@dromar.eth
This what the banana industry did with the Gros Michel species which got wiped out by Fusarium. They let them get wiped and favored Cavendish which is no 90%+. But now Cavendish is facing the same with TR4 fungal infections. I think it could work if they maintained lines that you can then breed in times of new pathogens. One way to do it could be regional?
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keccers
@keccers.eth
That seems so smart on my uneducated face, if I am understanding the idea, which is: if if there was a way to cultivate the properties we value in an egg chicken while still preserving some other elements genetic diversity, and then putting those different breeds at different farms x-country, so that MI egg farms were required to be diff than CA
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Omar
@dromar.eth
I wish I was that smart. The concept is derived from something we use in infectious disease called antibiograms, they started in the mid 2000s. They show the susceptibility data of a given bacteria along with its prevalence in that region. (chances that a e.coli UTI in X area will be resistant to a cephalosporin and how common e. coli was) Antibiograms vary considerably between not just regions but even among hospitals in big cities. Thus establishing something akin to a biogram for different species of a banana or chicken could allow tarageted breeding/farming especially if the biogram of the soil and others around can be included.
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keccers
@keccers.eth
Oh that’s so cool! Okay tracking!! The one problem that’s dawning on me is that uh, birds fly They say possible for like, a diseased bird to fly over a farm and poop mid air, and then a chicken on the ground eats the poop and it’s game over So does bird migration come into play here when assessing regions? 😂 is this dumb I can’t even tell 😂
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