Elizabethtown’s Wolgemuths look to the future
BY JACK RUBLEY
ELIZABETHTOWN - There was
no warning. No drop in egg
production or feed and water
consumption. But when his parents
returned from the poultry houses
on that last Sunday in October,
Paul Wolgemuth knew that
something was wrong.
Ninety birds had died that day on
his farm located three miles east of
Elizabethtown, and Paul suspected
the worst: the highly pathogenic
strain of HSN2, avian influenza.
The following day, Paul sent
birds for laboratory testing, and
the toll began to mount. By Friday,
when Pennsylvania Department of
Agriculture officials inspected his
farm and placed it under
quarantine, Paul was losing 9,000
chickens a day
“My parents and I did nothing
but carry birds, and we still
Although he and his family have lost nearly 150,000 birds
to avian influenza, Paul Wolgemuth sees a bright future for
southeastern Pa. poultrymen, and has resolved to stay in the
egg business.
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couldn’t keep up,” recalls Paul.
“Finally we had to ask for help.”
By Sunday, November 13, two
weeks after the outbreak had come
to their attention, the Wolgemuths
watched as USDA Task Force
personnel depopulated the 17,000
birds that remained from their
original flock of 70,000 chickens.
A former accountant for a CPA
firm in Harrisburg, Paul recalls
that his involvement with poultry
began at age five, with his father’s
floor'operation of about 5,000 birds.
In 1968, the elder Wolgemuth
built his first poultry house, a
15,000-bird facility, and in 1976 the
partnership of Paul Sr., and Paul
Jr., was begun with the . con
struction of a new 45,000-bird layer
house. Four years later, the
original house was expanded,
bringing the total capacity of the
two houses to 70,000 birds.
Avian flu epilogue:
It took only two weeks last fall to
reduce that number to zero, but the
Wolgemuths began the cleanup in
early December with the hope that
their'pullet flock being raised by a
Strasburg area contract grower,
would put them back in business
once the flu had passed.
For the moment, however, the
family’s problems seemed almost
insurmountable. The two houses,
being 34 and 50 feet wide, totalled
over 600 feet in length. According
to USDA inspectors, the entire
interior was to be clean enough to
“lay a sandwich anywhere within
the building”.
Though inspectors later relaxed
their criteria somewhat, Paul
admits that the prospect of
scrubbing over 200 yards of
chicken house to surgical
cleanliness was quite depressing.
Adding to their discouragement
were reports of numerous Lan
caster County houses failing to
pass the post-cleaning inspection.
Nevertheless, the whole family
put their shoulders to the task.
First, the walls, ceilings and floors
were swept and all the feathers
were removed from the cages.
There were three miles of feeder
chain to be cleaned, and the six
miles of well-used egg belts were
removed and burned.
Finally, the feeders, cages, walls
and ceilings were cleaned inch by
inch with hot-water, high-pressure
spray equipment. Paul estimates
conservatively that 300 hours were
required to wash the two houses,
with an average of four people a
day completing the entire cleanup
operation in two months.
With the cleanup finished in
early February, the Wolgemuths
were looking to an April
repopulation using the pullets from
their Strasburg grower.
But those pullets never arrived.
On February 6, the same day
that contractors disinfected their
layer houses under USDA
supervision, the Wolgemuths lost
their 78,000-bird replacement flock
to the flu.
“If we’d have had those
replacement birds, we’d be back in
business today,” laments Paul.
“We did manage to get some old
hens which we force-molted, and
we’re just starting to get some
eggs now. The smaller house is still
empty, though, and we’re hoping to
have birds in there by August.”
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Nearly 70,000 laying hens located in these two houses
owned by Paul Wolgemuth Jr., and his fa*her, Paul Sr., were
the victims of avian influenza. The disease has caused the
deaths of more than 12,227,000 birds in the Pa. quarantine
zone.
Though federal and state in
demnity programs eased the pain,
they weren’t enough to treat the
entire wound. One of the most
serious blows to afflicted poultry
operations has been the down-time
between depopulation and
repopulation.
“Our small house will be out of
operation from November to
August, and the older birds placed
in the larger house were put there
only to minimize our losses. The
amount of time that farmers are
out of business varies, and the
indemnity schedules don’t take
this into account,” Wolgemuth
stresses.
To make matters worse, egg
prices hit an all-time high during
the period when the Wolgemuths
were without birds.
There were other problems with
the money distributed for cleaning
and disinfecting. Though a pullet
grower may have received the
same $.12-per-bird rate as
Wolgemuths for cleanup, the
former may have received a
proportionately larger check.
“My big 45,000-bird layer house
could hold at least 60,000 pullets,”
Wolgemuth calculates, “so a pullet
grower would receive one-third
more for cleaning the same size
house, and without having to clean
all the egg collection equipment
necessary in a layer operation. ’ ’
Nevertheless, Paul and his wife,
Karen, do feel fortunate for the
assistance they did receive.
“It was a difficult program to
administer, and I think it was done
very well considering the cir
cumstances.
“At least we’re getting
something,” Wolgemuth con
tinues. “The gamebird breeders
who can’t ship their live birds or
hatching eggs out of the quarantine
area are really having a rough
time eventhough their birds
weren’t infected. By the time the
quarantine is lifted, they may have
already lost their markets.”
The Wolgfemuths agree that
changes will have to be made in the
poultry industry to guard against
future outbreaks.
“We used to sell eggs on the
farm, and this will be discon
tinued,” Paul states. “No one other
than family members will be
allowed in the houses, and we’ll be
using a foot bath, and coveralls
kept in the houses before entering.
Other precautions include the
restriction of vehicle traffic
around the poultry houses, with all
feed delivery trucks stopping at
the entrance' to Wolgemuth’s lane
to disinfect the tires and wheels
before driving onto the property.
But eventhough cleanliness and
flock isolation are important, Paul
does not consider them a cure-all.
“In our own houses, the diseases
started in the center. If one of us
carried it in, I’d expect the out
break to occur near the front of the
building. And at our pullet
grower’s facility, the flu showed up
first in the rear of the building.
This was the point closest to
another previously infected flock
located in a house about 1200 feet
away. It seems to me that the virus
is being transported through the
air as well as on people and
vehicles,” Wolgemuth theorizes.
But with all they’ve been through
since last fall, the Wolgemuths are
not ready to turn their backs on the
poultry business.
“In January, with outbreaks
occurring at the rate of three and
four a day, we started wondering if
the disease would ever be con
trolled,’’Paul admits, “but at this
point we’re very optimistic. We’re
going to stay in the egg business. ”
Traditionally, spring is a time
for new beginnings. Hopefully the
spring of 1984 will be remembered
as the season of new beginnings for
Pennsylvania’s poultrymen, as
well.