Sheldon, Iowa — The recent increase in the price of eggs is just one symptom of this year’s outbreak of HPAI, or Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza.
The outbreaks of bird flu have also caused some changes in the way things are done for a Sheldon trucking company that hauls eggs.
April Schaeffer of JT Trucking in Sheldon says that the major changes they’ve encountered are heightened biosecurity measures. She says the company’s tractors and trailers must now be washed every single time they go into and out of every facility they visit.
Schaeffer says HPAI hasn’t yet affected the number of loads of eggs JT Trucking hauls…at least not yet, because none of the facilities they haul from have been infected.
We’re currently only to mid-April and already some eighteen million birds have been infected with the virus, and have had to be destroyed. Schaeffer says that in the outbreak of 2015, 50 million birds had to be destroyed, and many sites didn’t get hit until LATE April. She says they’re hoping that pattern does not repeat this year.
