Dakota Layers in Flandreau, South Dakota has received approval for a Small Business Administration loan which will cover 35 percent of construction of new pullet barns. Dakota Layers Vice President Jason Ramsdell says the new facility will each house approximately 200,000 chicks.
Ramsdell says the loan was needed to help them recover from the highly pathogenic avian influenza that wiped out their birds leaving them with no income.
Ramsdell is concerned about the possible return of the bird flu and is watching the wild bird migration this fall.
He says the last time they’d seen an outbreak of bird flu was in the mid 1980s but that wasn’t the size nor scope of the outbreak they saw in 2014 when it moved rapidly across the Northern Plains.