Oklahoma officials sending out information about fatal fowl disease

<br>OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Oklahoma agriculture officials are notifying those who deal with poultry about a fatal disease that may have spread from Mexican fighting chickens to fowl in the United States.

Wednesday, March 5th 2003, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Oklahoma agriculture officials are notifying those who deal with poultry about a fatal disease that may have spread from Mexican fighting chickens to fowl in the United States.

The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry is sending out fliers about the exotic Newcastle disease to feed stores, bird swap meets and farmers markets.

The state Agriculture Department also has begun alerting extension offices across the state to look for the foot-and-mouth disease, which affects nearly all birds but not humans.

``We're hoping our safeguards are going to keep it out of the state, but we have to be vigilant,'' said Jack Carson, spokesman for the state Agriculture Department. ``The only way to deal with any outbreak is early detection and fast action to contain it.''

The disease was first detected in California in September and was subsequently found in flocks of Arizona and Nevada chickens. There is speculation that Mexican fighting chickens spread the disease to California birds.

``We want our producers to be aware it's there and to take the proper precautions,'' said Carey Floyd, an Agriculture Department veterinarian. Floyd and two teams of state veterinarians and other experts have been helping Nevada deal with the spread of the disease.

Oklahoma has guidelines identifying the disease and plans on destroying exposed birds and disposing of carcasses, Floyd said.

Taxpayers have spent $36 million to inspect and kill birds exposed to exotic Newcastle disease in California, in some cases paying as much as $1,000 per fighting chicken that had to be killed.

Cockfighting is illegal in California and a new federal law bans interstate transport of the fighting birds, but it is legal to raise them there.

The disease is like foot-and-mouth disease in birds, said Adrian Woodfork, spokesman with the more than 1,000-person Newcastle task force in California.

Woodfork said it is unclear whether the three states are close to containing the disease.

More than 3 million birds have already been killed in California to try to protect its multibillion dollar poultry industry.

Oklahoma's commercial chicken population is nearly 57 million chickens raised by 890 registered poultry farmers. Oklahoma has about 500,000 fighting roosters.