Buckeye-headquartered Hickman’s Family Farms calls itself the largest egg company in the Southwest.
At a press conference Friday, the president and CEO said 95% of his birds in Arizona have been lost to a recent outbreak of bird flu.
The announcement comes after state officials declared an animal disease emergency. Hickman’s lost about 1.1 million birds to avian flu in an earlier outbreak.
This time, the virus has claimed roughly 6 million birds.
President and CEO Glenn Hickman said the outbreak started in mid-May, and everything possible was done to keep it from spreading.
“And it didn’t work. We’ve been slowly losing the other three farms, plus our replacement pullet flock, over the past two weeks,” Hickman said.
He also said the outbreak will force layoffs.
Hickman expects it to take about two years to repopulate the flock and is calling on the federal government to let egg producers vaccinate against bird flu.
The farms have strong biosecurity defenses. Lasers and air canons scare away wild birds. Staff have to shower and don special uniforms just to go into a barn. And trucks entering the property get multiple washes.
But the chickens are still vulnerable.
“This is an airborne virus. We have to bring in air for the chickens to breathe. That’s our gap,” Hickman said.
The company has roughly 600,000 birds left at farms in Maricopa and in Grand Junction, Colorado.
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