Brooke Rollins. (Beth Clifton collage)
Ag secretary Brooke Rollins continues to stall vaccination, & hopes to undo state-level cage-free laws, which have little or nothing to do with the price of eggs
WASHINGTON D.C.––Donald Trump administration agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins on February 26, 2025 told media that she has directed the USDA to spend $1 billion more to try to lower egg prices by fighting the H5N1 avian flu.
This will be in addition to the $2 billion that the USDA has already spent fighting H5N1 since 2022, $1.2 billion of which was paid to agribusiness in compensation for poultry killed in thus far futile efforts to try to “stamp out” the disease.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“I don’t see a whole lot here” says agribiz banker
Among the keen listeners to Rollins’ speech was CoBank analyst Brian Earnest.
CoBank, a part of the U.S. Farm Credit System, helps to fund agribusiness.
“I don’t see a whole lot here that is a big change here from the current plan of action,” Earnest earnestly told Josh Boak of Associated Press.
“The main reason egg prices have climbed, hitting an all-time average high of $4.95 per dozen this month,” Boak summarized, “is that more than 166 million birds have been slaughtered to limit the virus’ spread when cases are found. Most were egg-laying chickens. Just since the start of the year, more than 30 million egg layers have been killed.
(Beth Clifton collage
“Price of eggs will go up 41.1% this year”
“The USDA now predicts the cost of eggs will go up 41.1% this year,” Boak added. “Just last month, the increase was predicted to be 20%.”
The Brooke Rollins plan, Boak detailed, “calls for $500 million investment to help farmers bolster biosecurity measures.”
This largely translates into doing even more than factory farms do already to ensure that densely housed poultry never get so much as a whiff of fresh air from outdoors.
Rollins also pledged $400 million “in additional aid for farmers whose flocks have been impacted by avian flu,” Boak said, a pledge translating into more compensation payments to agribusiness.
Brooke Rollins.
(Wikimedia photo)
Rollins needs a biology lesson
Finally, Rollins promised to spend “$100 million to research and potentially develop vaccines and therapeutics for U.S. chicken flocks and explore rolling back what the administration sees as restrictive animal welfare rules in some states,” Boak paraphrased, “like California’s cage-free requirement approved by voters.”
How any of this might actually lower egg prices within a year or more, even in the unlikely prospect that H5N1 is stopped following the present USDA strategy, is unclear.
Explained Oklahoma State University dean of agricultural programs to John Towfighi of CNN, “Egg production is a biological process. These are live animals who are bred and have breeding stock. And so, there is certainly a time component in adding back capacity to our national egg laying flock. That biological lag means there’s some limits in terms of how fast we can respond.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
USDA “accidentally” fired H5N1 response team
Rollins’ media conference came just eight days after Allan Smith, Melanie Zanona and Laura Strickler of NBC News disclosed that the USDA “accidentally” fired “several” key personnel who were “working on the federal government’s response to the H5N1 avian flu outbreak.”
Reported Smith, Zanona, and Strickler, “The USDA said it is now trying to quickly reverse the firings.”
Said an unidentified USDA spokesperson in a prepared statement. “Although several positions supporting [bird flu efforts] were notified of their terminations, we are working to swiftly rectify the situation and rescind those letters. USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service frontline positions are considered public safety positions, and we are continuing to hire the workforce necessary to ensure the safety and adequate supply of food to fulfill our statutory mission.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Will Animal Welfare Act enforcement staff be reassigned?
Rollins told Boak, he wrote, that despite those firings, and others that have “cut the USDA off at the knees,” some ex-staff told Investigate Midwest, “She believes the USDA has enough staff to respond to bird flu even after all the cuts to the federal workforce at the direction of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.”
Said Rollins, “Will we have the resources needed to address the plan I just laid out? We are convinced that we will, as we realign and evaluate where USDA has been spending money, where our employees are spending their time.”
This hinted that Rollins may transfer most, some, or perhaps all of the fewer than 60 USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service personnel assigned to enforcing the federal Animal Welfare Act.
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“Bending knee to demands of the broiler bird industry”
This includes the Animal Welfare Act amendments that prohibit cockfighting and transporting cockfighting paraphernalia across interstate lines.
That transporting gamefowl is a major vector for spreading H5N1 has been recognized by epidemiologists since a 2004 outbreak killed at least 32 people in Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
“The takeaway, in my opinion,” Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle told ANIMALS 24-7, “is that Rollins is caving into the National Chicken Council, bending the knee to demands of the broiler bird industry and its overstated fears of disruption in its $7 billion dark meat chicken exports, in not pursuing a vaccination strategy.”
China reportedly may refuse U.S. exports of chicken feet if the birds have been vaccinated.
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“Hollow as an empty eggshell”
Pacelle in a prepared response to Rollins charged that “Brooke Rollins’ so-called ‘comprehensive strategy to combat bird flu’ is as hollow as an empty eggshell.”
Specifically, Pacelle explained, “Rollins says the agency is ‘exploring the use of vaccines and therapeutics’ for laying hens but is not approving a vaccine for use in avian agriculture,” even though vaccines against H5N1 are already approved and in use in many other nations.
“In short,” said Pacelle, “it appears that Rollins is doubling down on the agency’s ‘stamp out’ strategy that has allowed the H5N1 virus to continue its march to all 50 states over three years, resulted in a depopulation calamity in the egg industry, and the start of viral spread to humans.”
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Mexico & France
Pointed out former USDA researcher and infectious disease expert Jim Keen, DVM, now director of veterinary science for the Center for a Humane Economy, “Mexico has had a fraction of the outbreaks of the United States even though American producers have heavily invested in biosecurity and are already superior to the Mexicans in that regard. It is clear that vaccination in Mexico and France is working, and it is astonishing to me that Secretary Rollins is talking about ‘exploration of a vaccine and therapeutics’ when what’s needed is on-the-ground implementation of vaccination.
“Reputable U.S.- and European-made veterinary vaccines against H5N1 are ready and she can approve them immediately,” Keen said.
Sandhill cranes.
(Beth Clifton photo/ collage)
H5N1 found in live market & hits sandhill cranes
Even as Rollins spoke, reported Jackie Roman for NJ Advance Media, “A case of bird flu was discovered at a live bird market in Union County, the New Jersey Department of Agriculture announced, marking the first positive bird flu case among domestic poultry in New Jersey since 2023,” hinting that similar outbreaks may soon follow at live bird markets throughout the U.S.
Wild migratory waterfowl continue to shed the H5N1 virus along the major flyways following the U.S. coasts and the Missisippi and Missouri river systems.
According to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, “nearly 1,500 sandhill cranes have died in Indiana so far in Green County, Union County, Jasper County, La Porte County, and Starke County from bird flu,” reported Cicily Porter of WSBT television in South Bend.
Sandhill cranes are just one relatively rare migratory bird species; Indiana is just one of the 50 states, all of which have now reported H5N1 outbreaks.
Cat stalks sandhill crane from the safe side of a window. (Beth Clifton photo)
AVMA warns H5N1 can hit cats
The American Veterinary Medical Association on February 25, 2025 warned that, “Since the U.S. outbreak of avian influenza H5N1 in dairy cattle began in March 2024, dozens of cats are known to have contracted the virus, including barn and feral cats, indoor cats, and big cats in zoos and in the wild, e.g., mountain lions, tigers, leopards, and bobcats.
“Cats were already known to be susceptible to the H5N1 virus,” the AVMA mentioned “with several feline cases linked to poultry or wild bird exposure before the outbreak in cattle began.
“Whether infected cats can infect other cats is currently unclear,” the AVMA acknowledged. “However, that possibility cannot be dismissed.
“Recent investigations implicate food as a source of infection for cats,” the AVMA said, “most often unpasteurized milk and raw or undercooked meat (e.g., poultry).”
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Oklahoma Republicans push to decriminalize cockfighting
Amid the growing nationwide concern about H5N1, the price of eggs, and even the potential H5N1 threat to cats, agriculture secretary Rollins, a Republican from Texas, conspicuously said nothing at all about the cockfighting vector.
In neighboring Oklahoma, meanwhile, Republican cosponsors pushed state senate bill SB 1111, to decriminalize cockfighting, to a public safety committee hearing scheduled for March 4, 2025.
Oklahoma voters made cockfighting a felony in 2002, reminded Animal Wellness Action representative Kevin Chambers in an email to ANIMALS 24-7, but “This bill would decriminalize cockfighting to a misdemeanor on the first two convictions and removes some existing language that would make it even harder to prosecute people than it is now.”
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Big cockfighting busts in Kansas & Washington
Despite lack of recent vigorous action against cockfighting from the federal level, the association of cockfighting with H5N1 has apparently encouraged some state and local agencies to bust cockfights within their jurisdictions.
In Kansas, the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office on January 25, 2025 impounded more than 400 alleged gamefowl from a property in Mulvane, near Wichita.
Then on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2025, sheriff’s deputies in Thurston County, Washington, impounded “more than 500 roosters being raised for cockfighting” from a location near Yelm, KOMO News of Seattle reported.
“In addition to the roosters,” according to KOMO, “numerous neglected livestock such as horses, cows and goats were also found on the property.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Four Washington busts in less than a year
“The four people arrested, described as two brothers and their two nephews, were booked for investigation of animal cruelty and training animals to fight, which are felonies. Probable cause was found to hold all four in custody, but no bail was imposed. However, all the defendants have ties to Mexico and the judge ordered them to surrender their passports before they could be released,” KOMO added.
The Yelm bust was the fourth major cockfighting raid in southeastern Washington in less than a year, recalled Brandon Thompson of KIRO 7 News.
Merritt & Beth Clifton with Henry the rooster.
Previous raids came in Pierce County in April 2024; in Yakima County in May 2024; and in both Yakima and Spokane counties in August 2024, coordinated with cockfighting raids in Louisiana, Colorado, and Arkansas.
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