Chickens Across America Getting Nervous

PHILADELPHIA — From his poultry shop in Philadelphia’s low-income
Kensington neighborhood, Tony Tranh sells about 300 live birds each week,
mainly to poor Asian and Hispanic immigrants.

He used to sell 600 live chickens, guinea hens, ducks, and pigeons a week,
but that was before the avian flu scare.

”The people are scared," said Tranh, the owner of Mac’s Poultry.

Not without reason. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture temporarily
closed two of Philadelphia’s five live-bird markets last year after mild
strains of the avian flu virus were detected during routine inspections.
Those strains were different from the lethal H5N1 strain, and posed no
threat to humans, the agency said.

US chicken sales haven’t been affected by the flu scare, but a recent
survey by the Harvard School of Public Health suggested that 46 percent
of people would stop eating chicken if bird flu hits the American poultry
industry.

from the Boston Globe

Don’t know about you guys, but we have been eating
a lot of chicken lately at the Dowbrigade Ranch: Coq a vin, baked chicken,
roast chicken,
chicken marsala, chicken alfredo, pollo guisado, caldo de gallina, chicarones
de pollo. After all, we may not be able to get it much longer.

And, coincidentally,
all of the stores seem to be having big sales on poultry. How strange.
Boneless chicken breast for 88 cents a pound. Thinning the flock in
anticipation of the mass exterminations which will follow the first
confrmed cases of H5N1 in the lower 48?

As we type these words, the TV in the background, set to a news
channel, plays a commercial for Subway featuring their Buffalo Chicken
Sandwiches.
For a limited time only….