The hot, steamy, months of July and August are peak mosquito season on the Gulf Coast. The Mobile County Public Health Department is preparing for this battle of the bugs by bringing in a new batch of recruits to help out. They’re not human foot soldiers but sentinel chickens. This APR story was made possible by a grant from the Caring Foundation…
Inside a metal building at the Mobile County Health Department’s vector services, Michael McNeil reaches into a bin of chicken feed. Next to him, ninety four tiny chicks huddle in a coop warmed by heat lamps. When McNeil fills the feeder, the chicks kick up a ruckus.
McNeil’s soft voice and gentle demeanor just might earn him the title of chicken whisperer for Mobile County’s Health Department. He’s responsible for the care of these two-week old recruits in the county’s sentinel chicken program.
“So far these chickens are growing real nice,” said McNeil.
With its proximity to lots of swampy land like the Mobile Tensaw Delta, lower Alabama is just right for breeding mosquitoes.
“We’re a port city. We have well over 50 different species of mosquitoes in our community,” said Mobile County Health Officer Dr. Kevin Michaels. He says these chickens guard against the mosquito borne diseases West Nile virus, Saint Louis Encephalitis, and Eastern Equine Encephalitis. All of which can be dangerous and even deadly to humans. But chickens are a dead-end host. Meaning they can catch the diseases but don’t get sick and can’t pass them along. When an infected mosquito bites a chicken, the bird’s blood tests positive for antibodies. Michaels says the Gulf Coast has a long history with mosquito-borne diseases.
“We lost a significant amount of population due to yellow fever in the 1700s,” Michaels recalls.
In the 1800s, Doctors in Alabama and Cuba made the connection between mosquitoes and yellow fever. Today, Mobile County is the only public health department in the state using chickens as part of its defense against mosquito-borne illnesses. Michaels says they’ve been doing it for 40 years.
“Prior to that, they were going out and catching birds, wild birds and tagging them. That was a little bit more challenging,” he said.
Around June when these chicks are bigger, they'll be banded ,vaccinated and tested to make sure they’re negative for disease. Then workers will place them – four to a coop - out in the community. Kevin Michaels says once a week, they’ll draw blood from the wings of two hens at each site and send the sample off to a lab in Florida.
“The next week, they'll come out and check the other two and they'll rotate throughout the whole season and that way,” he said.
Michaels says a positive test result sets a plan in motion.
“We then use that data to determine how we're going to approach whether we have to aggressively spray. Look at other, you know, remind the community that standing water even a little bottle cap That has standing waters is enough for mosquitoes to breed,” Michaels said.
All the chickens are egg laying hens. They’ll do their surveillance job until Thanksgiving -providing employees the extra perk of fresh eggs. At the end of the year, the department retires the hens to the public on a first come first serve basis.
Back at the coop, McNeil marvels at his tiny charges and their time-honored role in public health.
“It’s old fashion technology but it still works,” McNeil said.
