Bird flu cases are on the rise, after the disease was confirmed at a commercial poultry farm in Georgia

A Georgia chicken producer is working to stop the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), more commonly known as bird flu, after becoming the third commercial operation in the state to test positive this year.

The Gordon County producer noticed signs of illness on Wednesday and reported it to the Georgia Poultry Laboratory Network on Thursday, according to a news release from the Georgia Department of Agriculture.

The next day, state agricultural response and Georgia Department of Agriculture emergency management teams “deployed to affected facilities to conduct depopulation, removal, cleaning and disinfection.”

The facility housed around 140,000 broilers.

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Workers pack egg boxes at Sunrise Farms on February 18, 2025 in Petaluma, California. As egg prices continue to skyrocket due to the bird flu outbreak, egg producers are having to invest millions of dollars in biosecurity efforts to keep their flocks safe. (Justin Sullivan)

For at least the next two weeks, state officials say, all commercial poultry operations within a 6.2-mile radius will be under quarantine and undergo surveillance testing.

“This represents a serious threat to Georgia’s number one industry and to the thousands of Georgians whose livelihoods depend on poultry production,” Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler J. Harper said in a statement. “Our team is working around the clock to contain the spread and protect our flocks.”

Rows of raw chickens are placed on rotating rotisseries inside a glass rotisserie oven at a food stall in Rotterdam, Netherlands, on September 9, 2025. (Michael Nguyen/NurPhoto)

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Last week, the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Office of Research and Innovation Policy (CIDRAP) reported that a commercial turkey farm in Swift County “housing 34,000 birds is the site of the latest outbreak to hit the nation’s top turkey-producing state.”

A commercial egg layer farm in Indiana with nearly 20,000 birds also recently reported an outbreak of bird flu, CIDRAP reported.

ISA Brown chickens in a chicken coop at an egg farm in Mason, Michigan, U.S., on Monday, March 3, 2025. (Emily Elconin/Bloomberg)

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HPAI was first confirmed in a commercial flock in the US on February 8, 2022, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Inspection Service (APHIS).

Agency data says that in the past 30 days, 64 flocks have been confirmed infected, affecting nearly 3.5 million birds.