As mosquito season looms, Mobile County Health Department's sentinel flock program in the news

WKRG reporter Devon Walsh holds one of the Mobile County Health

Department's immature chickens destined for the small cages

seen in the image. The chickens are strategically placed throughout the county to

detect mosquito-borne viruses typically between May and November each year.

MOBILE, Ala. -- In preparation for mosquito season, the Mobile County Health Department's Vector control division purchased 101 baby chicks in February.
Devon Walsh, a reporter for WKRG TV5, spent time with members of the Vector Control Division this week to find out more about the role the sentinel flock plays in protecting public health in Mobile County. A segment about them program is scheduled to air on a TV5 morning show in April.

“Because of the increased demand for chickens, we had to get them early,” said Jerry Folse, who leads Vector Control at MCHD. “This is the earliest we’ve ever had to buy them.”

Because temperatures dipped below freezing in late winter, a plan was hatched to care for the baby chicks indoors, in cages, until they were old enough to survive in the health department’s large chicken coop in downtown Mobile.

Known as black Sexlink chickens, there were about 94 chicks left by mid-April. Roughly half of the birds will be placed in groups of four at 13 sites strategically located around Mobile County. The others will remain at the coop to serve as replacements for any chickens that contract a mosquito-borne illness.

For more than 25 years, MCHD’s Vector Control division has monitored encephalitis in sentinel poultry flocks placed throughout the county to detect the presence of viruses carried by
mosquitoes. Mosquitoes also are trapped throughout the county and tested for Eastern
Equine Encephalitis, West Nile Virus, and St. Louis Encephalitis. Aggressive
surveillance and control activities are ongoing.

For several years, MCHD vector employee Tim Busby has been charged with caring for the chickens. He feeds them, gives them water and cleans out their cages several times a day before and throughout mosquito season, which typically runs from spring through the end of October.

Busby has become known as the chicken whisperer, he said, because of his knack for keeping the hens healthy and happy during their time at MCHD's roomy coop. When the first freeze hits the Gulf Coast, Folse said the remaining chickens are typically adopted by the property owners where the coops are located across the county. "People like them because they tend to be happy chickens that lay lots of eggs."