U.S. Poultry Supply In Safe Hands

Kaledin: Bird Flu No Match For The 'Fort Knox' Of Poultry

(CBS)  It's the "Fort Knox" of poultry, a world so shrouded in mystery we were not told where we were being taken except that it was "somewhere outside Little Rock."

When we got there we weren't even told who owns these chickens. Why? It's all about protecting the birds and a multi-billion dollar industry threatened by a lethal virus.

Just to give you an idea of the kinds of precautions taken to protect these flocks from the introduction of any disease or germs, there's a whole series of steps I have to go through even to be allowed into these houses, CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Kaledin reports.

I've got to cover up my shoes, Kaledin says. I've got plastic boots I've got to put on and then there's the full cover-up. Hands have to be cleaned with an alcohol-based cleanser. And then the last step is cleaning the feet in an iodine solution before going in.

Inside we are greeted by about 28,000 three-day-old chicks.

Bird flu always weighs heavily on the minds of poultry farmers and the current outbreak of disease in Asia and Europe has lead to a heightened state of alert.

"We're monitoring the situation very closely," says James Barton of the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission.

Barton is the poultry veterinarian for the state of Arkansas. Already this year he says the lab has tested 86,000 samples for any signs of bird flu in the state.

"Each sample represents an individual bird," he says.

There's little chance of a sneak attack says Barton. If bird flu comes to this country, even in backyard flocks, it will be obvious, he says.

"It's really impossible for someone to have a severe disease like bird flu and hide it from everyone. We'd know about it," Barton explains.

Water fowl, ducks and geese are the biggest threats because they can spread the virus to chickens, but if any infected birds get near houses, "we would immediately throw up a specified area of quarantine around those houses, around those flocks, and yes, if the flock tested positive, those birds would have to be humanely destroyed," says Morril Harriman of The Poultry Federation.

With security this tight at chicken farms from coast to coast, Americans can be at ease about the safety of the nation's poultry supply.

Experts agree a more likely source of bird flu in this country would be if a human who's been affected gets aboard an airplane.