YEAREND: Poultry farmers continue to battle avian flu in 2025, aMPV in turkeys
Dec. 22, 2025
By John Lovett
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station
Fast facts
- Arkansas got ‘lucky’ with no cases in second half of year
- Turkey farmers face additional threat with avian metapneumovirus, aMPV
- Three years into HPAI pandemic, poultry workers face ‘biosecurity fatigue’
(1,098 words)
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — While egg prices are back down to normal levels, chicken meat is reasonably inexpensive and Thanksgiving turkey prices were comparable to last year, avian influenza remained a serious threat to the poultry industry in 2025.
With research from the Czech Republic earlier this year giving genetic evidence that suggests the virus can be carried long distances by the wind, avoiding a case of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, in a poultry flock is a combination of luck and being on high biosecurity alert, said Jada Thompson, an associate professor specializing in the poultry industry for the department of agricultural economics and agribusiness.
On Dec. 19, the Arkansas Department of Agriculture announced it had confirmed an HPAI case in Cleveland County. Prior to that, Arkansas had only experienced cases at the first of the year, with about 107,000 broilers and about 19,500 breeders affected, Thompson said.
Arkansas Secretary of Agriculture Wes Ward said Dec. 19 that the HPAI risk to Arkansas remains low, and poultry and eggs that are properly handled and fully cooked are safe to consume.
Wholesale composite prices for broilers averaged $1.26 per pound, down 2 percent from last year, supported by resilient domestic demand and stable export interest, according to the 2025 Markets in Review from the Fryar Price Risk Management Center of Excellence.
“Broiler prices remained the most price-competitive source of animal protein relative to beef and pork,” the Market in Review stated.
The Fryar Center is a unit of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas. Thompson is a faculty member with the Division of Agriculture’s research arm, the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, and Bumpers College.
Reasons for the broiler price stability include production being up 3 percent, live weights trending higher and feed costs being comparable to a year ago but 18 percent below the previous five-year average.
With turkeys, very little of the increase in wholesale prices were passed to consumers for Thanksgiving because most of the production is forward contracted for the holiday season, explained James Mitchell, extension livestock economist for the Division of Agriculture.
Big egg drop
The HPAI wave from mid-October 2024 to March 2025 resulted in the loss of 50.7 million egg-laying hens, which coincided with the approach of strong egg demand during the holidays, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report. The demand, coupled with tight supplies, contributed to both wholesale and retail egg prices surging to all-time highs by February. The following month, daily wholesale prices fell early because of a decline in egg demand combined with a pause in HPAI. And by April, with a decline in seasonal demand and despite low inventories, the monthly average wholesale price had fallen to $3.74 per dozen, down from $8.20 in February.
Metapneumovirus in turkeys
In addition to bird flu, turkey farmers are on the watch for avian metapneumovirus, or aMPV, a highly contagious upper respiratory disease in turkeys that has become a threat to not only existing flocks but also future supply.
“Metapneumovirus reduces hatchability, so not all of the eggs you’re setting are going to hatch,” Thompson said. “Adding another layer of problems for turkey farmers is that birds that have been impacted were also breeder birds, which limits future replacement in the next cycle of production.”
With the loss of many parenting stocks late last year and the beginning of this year “the turkey industry is still trying to play catch up, while also having to fight metapneumovirus and HPAI,” Thompson added.
Cole Crumpacker, staff veterinarian for Butterball and a former research assistant in the department of poultry science for the Division of Agriculture, said at this year’s Center for Food Animal Wellbeing Symposium that aMPV can cause up to 2,000 turkey deaths daily per barn with some outbreaks lasting a week to 10 days.
Use of a vaccine for aMPV that has been used in Europe for 30 years has not helped much so far, he added.
Since January, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has lowered its 2025 commercial turkey production forecast by 6 percent to 4.807 billion pounds, according to the Fryar Price Risk Management Center of Excellence 2025 Markets in Review. If realized, it will be the smallest annual turkey output since 1991.
HPAI vaccine strategy study
In collaborative research with agricultural economists at Kansas State University and Washington State University, Thompson has been looking at the economic impact of an HPAI vaccination strategy for egg layers and turkeys. Broilers were not included in the vaccination scenarios to assess the impact of industry specific vaccines to address potential trade impacts and because broilers are not as susceptible to the virus due to their shorter grow-out cycle, she said.
“We ran different scenarios and the results indicate that it is extremely cost-effective to vaccinate prophylactically to reduce HPAI,” Thompson said of the preliminary research results.
‘Biosecurity fatigue’
Three years into dealing with bird flu, biosecurity measures in the poultry industry that are shown to be effective have also become like traffic signs: obviously the right thing to do but sometimes just forgotten due to what Thompson calls “biosecurity fatigue.”
“In a case control study I did looking at turkey houses that were impacted from HPAI, and turkey houses that were not, the farms that invested in biosecurity tended to have a lower chance of being an infected house,” Thompson said.
The study, titled “Biosecurity investment impacts on highly pathogenic avian influenza control in United States commercial turkey operations,” was published in the July volume of the journal Preventative Veterinary Medicine with colleagues at the Center for Epidemiology and Animal Health, a science center within the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Veterinary Services.
Due to biosecurity measures becoming commonplace, Thompson said farmers and poultry industry workers should be mindful of the fatigue that can set in on following the rules.
“Biosecurity fatigue is a big deal. People can only pay attention to this big thing for so long before it just becomes normalized,” Thompson said. “It is easy to say ‘Everybody should just do what they’re supposed to do.’ Yes, but at some point, we just forget. It’s the same reason why you’re driving down the road and look down and all of a sudden, you’re speeding a little.”
Wild bird testing by governmental agencies like the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service offers early signals for poultry farmers and workers to track and be on high alert, Thompson noted.
“The importance of monitoring and surveillance is to give this kind of forewarning that says ‘Hey, you have all these practices you’re doing all the time but be extra vigilant right now,” Thompson said. “We see it’s coming.”
To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website. Follow us on X at @ArkAgResearch, subscribe to the Food, Farms and Forests podcast and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. Follow us on X at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three system campuses.
Pursuant to 7 CFR § 15.3, the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and is an equal opportunity institution.
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Media Contact: John Lovett
U of A System Division of Agriculture
Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station
(479) 763-5929
jlovett@uada.edu