It was surprising to see what things sold out early in the pandemic: toilet paper, yeast, exercise equipment…. and chicken coops.

Yes, there was a run on chicken coops.

It seems like a lot of people decided to get backyard chickens in response to all the COVID-19 restrictions.

Any human-to-animal contact has a mixture of

I was at our local farm supply store the other day and saw a sign indicating they were out of chicken coops and trying to find more from different sources. I wonder if there’s a run on backyard chickens as people spend more time at home.  There are some positive aspects to that – and

COVID-19 derailed our plans for some backyard chicken work (e.g. research and education) this spring, but the emergence of COVID-19 doesn’t mean all other infectious disease issues have disappeared. Some problems will be reduced by the precautions put in place to control COVID-19, but other problems may actually get worse. Backyard chickens continue to be

This is one of these “I’m not sure it’s really news” stories, but I guess is should be because it’s still a problem. We know there is a clear link between reptiles and Salmonella in people.  Reptiles are common carriers of this bacterium, and human infections from handling reptiles or having contact with their environment