For the first time since the 2022 countrywide outbreak, bird flu hit a poultry producer in Georgia, the nation’s top state for chicken production.
The state Department of Agriculture announced Friday that the agency has detected a case of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza at a commercial poultry producer in Elbert County, approximately 100 miles (165 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta. The agency suspended all poultry exhibitions, shows, swaps, meets and sales.
The virus has been detected four times in Georgia, but only in backyard flocks previously, including among 13 chickens and ducks earlier this month in Clayton County south of Atlanta.