As bird flu outbreaks continue to affect animals, experts answer questions about keeping pets and their owners healthy

Without a new policy including vaccines, the government will continue to slaughter every flock with a bird flu infection to limit the spread of the disease. Those deaths have totaled over 166 million birds in the U.S. since 2022.

The ongoing bird flu outbreak has led to wild bird deaths, slaughtered livestock, and hazardous conditions for dairy industry workers.

FOX 5 NY has confirmed that the health department is looking into two separate incidents of cats testing positive for the bird flu. In one case, the source is believed to be contaminated cat food.

The Mississippi Board of Animal Health (MBAH) announced that poultry from a commercial broiler breeder chicken flock in Mississippi tested positive for the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Officials with the MBAH were notified by the U.

A lot goes into the production of eggs — and with the Trump administration’s tariff policies potentially affecting costs for chicken feed and equipment, bird flu isn’t the only reason U.S. consumers may continue to pay high prices for eggs at the grocery store.

Bird flu is sweeping through egg-laying chickens in the United States at an unprecedented rate. So far in 2025, 30 million layers, as they’re known, have been culled, close to the 38 million killed throughout all of last year: Nearly 10 percent of the country’s annual number of egg-layers have been wiped out.

The US government is considering bird flu vaccines to prevent the mass culling of infected chickens, which has driven egg prices to nearly $6 per dozen.

The move has been delayed in part because of concerns it could jeopardize chicken exports worth billions of dollars a year.

Vaccines could be a key means of suppressing bird flu and avoiding the slaughter of millions of chickens, which is blamed for egg prices averaging nearly $5 a dozen.