Some poultry growers are turning to innovative tactics to protect their flocks, deploying deterrents like drones, air horns, balloons and decoy predators.
Loren Brey, a poultry grower in Minnesota, walked onto the farm where his egg-laying turkeys nest in November to discover a handful of hens, dead from the highly pathogenic avian flu.
Within a week, he lost nearly half of his entire flock.
So when Mr. Brey’s turkeys began producing eggs again in the spring, he gave a seemingly unconventional prevention method a go: lasers installed atop his barns, firing beams of green light to fend off wild ducks, owls and other possible carriers of the deadly virus.
As migratory birds fly north for the spring, poultry farmers and backyard keepers across the country are bracing for yet another outbreak of avian flu. Although the most recent strain has felled only a small portion of the nearly 10 billion chickens, turkeys, ducks and other birds sold across the country each year, some poultry growers like Mr. Brey are turning to innovative tactics to protect their flocks, deploying deterrents like drones, air horns, balloons and decoy predators.