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Transcribed using AI. May contain errors.

Fair-goers 

Whoa! Whoa! 

Amy Quinton 

It's summertime, and at California's Orange County Fair, the games are on. People are tossing ping pong balls into fish bowls, shooting water guns, throwing darts at balloons.

Caroline Champlin 

But on the other side of the fairgrounds, kids are playing a different kind of game. 

Avian bowl moderator 

Wanna try out the buzzers? Number one. Number two, good. Number three.

Amy Quinton 

It's a quiz show all about chickens, 

Avian bowl moderator 

Poultry genetics fill in the blank. 

Amy Quinton 

And actually, other kinds of poultry too: ducks, geese, quail, turkeys.

Caroline Champlin 

It's called avian bowl, and the players take their bird facts very seriously. These kids would know an Orpington from a Cornish hen. 

Avian bowl moderator 

Really a good idea to have your finger on the buzzer, but don't cover the light.

Amy Quinton 

Most of the contestants are part of 4-H clubs, a nationwide youth program that partners with universities to grow leadership skills and knowledge in a wide range of topics, including science and agriculture,

Caroline Champlin 

The official quiz questions are so closely guarded we weren't allowed to record them. 

Amy Quinton 

What the cluck! 

Caroline Champlin 

But lucky listeners today, we are bringing the games to you.

Amy Quinton 

Get ready for an Unfold edition of the avian bowl.

Caroline Champlin 

Because this episode, we're talking turkey, about poultry.

Amy Quinton 

We'll have a chance to test our bird brains with avian bowl quiz questions.

Caroline Champlin 

And then we'll hear the latest on the spread of bird flu and how the virus is reshaping animal science education and the world of competitive chicken showing

Amy Quinton 

Coming to you from UC Davis

Caroline Champlin 

and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, or UC ANR, 

Amy Quinton 

This is Unfold. I'm Amy Quinton 

Caroline Champlin 

and I'm Caroline Champlin.

Amy Quinton 

Caroline is a writer for UC ANR.

Caroline Champlin 

If you haven't heard of us, we're part of the UC system, and our job is to make university research accessible for people to learn and use in their lives, 

Amy Quinton 

Which sounds like a really big task. 

Caroline Champlin 

It's a huge task. The communities we serve includes farmers, home gardeners, youth in nutrition classes, people preparing theirhomes for wildfire, and in this case, kids that are curious about chickens. 

Amy Quinton 

Which brings us back to the avian bowl. 

Caroline Champlin 

The competition was started by a poultry expert affiliated with UC Davis and UC ANR. Most of the players are 4-H members. Basically, it's a way to connect young people with university knowledge, and instead of just telling you about it, why don't we get right into the game ourselves? 

Amy Quinton 

Let's do it. 

Caroline Champlin 

Alright Amy, do you think you're smarter than an avian bowler?

Amy Quinton 

 No, 

Caroline Champlin 

Well, we will see soon enough, I will be the quiz master today, and I have four questions for you. Do you have your buzzer ready? 

Amy Quinton 

I do. 

Caroline Champlin 

Great. Okay, 

Amy Quinton 

So excited. 

Caroline Champlin 

All right. First question is from the egg Cyclopedia section of the avian bowl manual. This part of the egg changes color depending on what the chicken eats, but that doesn't indicate nutritive content. What part of the egg are we talking about? 

Amy Quinton 

Well, that's no yolk. 

Caroline Champlin 

Oh, it is. Though it is. 

Amy Quinton 

It's a yolk. Okay, 

Caroline Champlin 

it is very good, very nice. Okay. Second question, a little bit harder to break out of an egg. A chick uses this sharp, horny structure located on the tip of its upper beak. What is that structure called?

Amy Quinton 

Oh my gosh, I don't know. I would call it a beak, a pointy beak.

Caroline Champlin 

It is called an egg tooth,

Amy Quinton 

An egg tooth. Interesting. Okay, okay,

Caroline Champlin 

All right, next up. Okay, this next topic stumped both teams in the avian Bowl this year. Can you name this egg dish? It's a savory kind of egg pudding and a good way to use stale bread. 

Amy Quinton 

Wow, got me not a quiche, 

Caroline Champlin 

Not a quiche, but, but close. 

Amy Quinton 

Um, no, I don't know.

Caroline Champlin 

 It's called strata. 

Amy Quinton 

Strata. 

Caroline Champlin 

It's something that my grandma used to make all the time, actually, and we would always just call it a cheese bake or an egg bake,

Amy Quinton 

yeah. Okay, interesting. 

Caroline Champlin 

But nowwe know that the technical term,

Amy Quinton 

So did I win? No, what do I win? An egg? 

Caroline Champlin 

Great question. Well, you have one more you have one last question. Let's see. 

Amy Quinton 

Oh, okay, 

Caroline Champlin 

okay. So in the past, the term fowl plague was used to describe outbreaks of what respiratory disease in poultry. I. 

Amy Quinton 

It's gotta be avian flu. 

Caroline Champlin 

That's exactly right. Bird flu, also called avian influenza, and this is a hot topic, because we're actually in the middle of a foul plague of our own right now. 

Amy Quinton 

Right? The current outbreak of avian flu started in 2021 and has spread like crazy since then, killing wild birds and domestic poultry. 

Caroline Champlin 

Well because of that, the state veterinarian put a ban on chicken exhibitions at state and county fairs, which has upended life for kids in the avian bowl, because many of them competitively raise and show chickens. And despite the ban at fairs, many still have chickens at home waiting till it's safe to get back into the spotlight.

Amy Quinton 

And I hear you got to see some of those chickens shake their tail feathers. 

Caroline Champlin 

I did. I met up with Daytona and Skye Jones sisters, who live in Orange County. Here's Daytona.

Daytona Jones 

Would you please walk your birds, starting at this side, go to the other side, pose and go back and pose again.

Caroline Champlin 

They showed me their backyard chicken,Lulu. Skye played the bird handler, and Daytona the chicken judge.

Daytona Jones 

Usually you'd use a stick, but she doesn't. She doesn't need one, because she walks really good.

Caroline Champlin 

The goal is to demonstrate control of the animal and also to make the bird look good.

Amy Quinton 

And how do you make a chicken look good?

Caroline Champlin 

I'm so glad you asked. Beard Oil. 

Amy Quinton 

Of course, 

Caroline Champlin 

The competitors grease up the chicken's legs, as well as their wattle and comb, which is all that fleshy skin around a chicken's head and beak. They also give them a bath and Amy, just to set the scene for you, Lulu isn't the only animal in this backyard. I'll let Daytona tell you. 

Daytona Jones 

Three doves, one pigeon, three quail, two bunnies, five guinea pigs, five chickens, two ducks, three dogs, a cat, a lot of fish, box turtle and one giant tortoise.

Amy Quinton 

Oh, my God, that's a lot.

Caroline Champlin 

It's 90 animals all at one house in Orange County.

Skye Jones 

Every time that we, like, tell like, how many pets we have, everyone's like, well, you must have a zoo, but we're like, kind of but, like, our house is pretty small so. and it doesn't Still have a lot of room for. 

Daytona Jones 

It don't even feel like that much anymore. If we ever got a bigger amount of land, we might get, like, goats or turkeys would be awesome. I really like geese, like, I feel like we're a very bird family. We love chickens. We'd love to get more.

Janet O’Faolin 

We have a morning routine and an evening routine and a midday routine. This is the girl's mom, Janet. And people often ask, do you go on vacation? Isay, No, no, I live in Southern California, and we love it, and this is the life we chose, like, I don't regret it. And say, Oh, we never go anywhere. But even if we were to go somewhere, we'd have to get an RV and bring the chickens.

Amy Quinton 

I can just imagine that. Can you imagine, like being on the road, seeing an RV drive by with a bunch of chickens in the window, Clucking.

Caroline Champlin 

 Wind blowing through their feathers? 

Amy Quinton 

Sounds like a great vacation

Caroline Champlin 

A free chicken. That's what they mean by free range. 

Caroline Champlin 

And chicken showing is the girl's main extracurricular activity. Their mom says it teaches responsibility and keeps them off screens,

Janet O’Faolin 

Putting a bird in a child's hand for the first time. And they think like, 'oh my god, it's so delicate. Oh my god, it's so soft, and it's not pecking me.' And everybody thinks the chicken's gonna peck them. And they think, wow, they're gonna be ferocious, and they're so gentle. And it's just a transformation that comes over the child that's like a moment, a light bulb moment, just wow. I never knew

Caroline Champlin 

In the last year, they've missed out on at least eight competitions because of bird flu. Janet is worried a long term outbreak could be an existential threat to chicken showing 

Amy Quinton 

Sounds like it's a really difficult situation.

Caroline Champlin 

Yeah, I would not want to be the state vet

Maurice Pitesky 

The authorities are really trying to thread a very thin needle

Amy Quinton 

That's UC Davis professor and UC ANR poultry expert Maurice Pitesky.

Maurice Pitesky 

On the one hand, the fairs are these amazing experiences for all that are involved in children all the way to adults. It's a great way to learn about agriculture. But as a veterinarian who focuses on epidemiology and disease transmission, the reality is, is that you always have this risk anytime you bring animals together,

Caroline Champlin 

We called Maurice to learn how long avian flu might stick around,

Amy Quinton 

And he told us it's important to know how the virus got here in the first place.

Caroline Champlin 

I'm looking at you wild ducks and geese. Those guys are the main carriers of the virus.

Maurice Pitesky 

They migrate into the arctic during the summer, and in the summer, we have all these different waterfowl from different flyways interacting with each other.

Caroline Champlin 

It's one big summertime bird party.

Amy Quinton 

Unfortunately, it's kind of a global super spreader event.

Maurice Pitesky 

So when they come down in the fall, they're probably going to bring virus down with them, because they're going to have all these ducklings and goslings that are having the virus transmittedfrom their mommies and daddies, if you will, and then in the fall and winter and spring, that's when we've historically, over the last three years, seen significant increases in farms that are affected by by the virus.

Caroline Champlin 

Those wild birds infect domestic birds through all kinds of vectors, water, people, equipment, feed, flies, beetles, even air currents.

Amy Quinton 

And when a farm chicken gets sick, it isn't pretty.

Maurice Pitesky 

Kind of like a gurgling, or almost like, almost a cough coming, kind of coming from the trachea, and there's just some gunk in there. So you can almost hear this kind of rattling as the chickens breathing in and out to the trachea. That bird has a very high potential of dying. Sometimes 100% of the flock will die.

Caroline Champlin 

And we're not just talking one or two chickens here. 

Maurice Pitesky 

When you go to a commercial poultry facility, you're often seeing total numbers of birds in the hundreds of 1000s, if not millions.

Amy Quinton 

And if avian flu is detected in a farm, there's no treatment.

Caroline Champlin 

The government requires the poultry house be depopulated.

Maurice Pitesky 

There's a farm in Arizona, unfortunately that just got hit, and they had to euthanize millions of birds. They had, I think, a total layer population of close to 5 million birds. It's devastating and emotionally difficult, economically difficult, and that and those challenges kind of percolate to consumers.

Caroline Champlin 

Bird flu is particularly dangerous, Maurice says, because it's an RNA virus and those tend to mutate a lot.

Amy Quinton 

That feature makes it good at adapting to new hosts. In the case of this outbreak that now includes cats, boxes, coyotes, raccoons, sea lions and dairy cattle.

Maurice Pitesky 

That's significant for us as Californians, in the sense that we have the largest dairy industry in the US. We have a relatively large poultry industry, and we have a lot of waterfowl. So no pun intended, we're kind of sitting ducks for this virus

Caroline Champlin 

Normally summertime in North America would mean a break from the flu, because most of our birds are out of town for the season.

Amy Quinton 

But now, with all those other animals carrying the virus, we've got a year round problem on our hands. 

Maurice Pitesky 

It's kind of checks off all the criteria of being something that seems to be in North America now kind of for to stay at this point. Unfortunately,

Caroline Champlin 

He says bird flu is looking like an endemic disease,

Amy Quinton 

Which could mean future disruptions to the world of chicken showing, 

Maurice Pitesky 

I know there are some people that are so keen to prevent disease transmission that they want to basically ban shows

Caroline Champlin 

That would be a huge shame, Maurice says, because agricultural education programs like 4-H can be such a valuable way to teach young people about science.

Amy Quinton 

So what does Maurice recommend if kids can't show birds?

Caroline Champlin 

Well, he suggests preparing young people to solve the problem of bird flu, which is exactly what some 4-H advisors are doing. They're launching a laboratory program for kids to study bird flu under a microscope by making a harmless replica of the virus. Meanwhile, Maurice and his lab are taking another approach to communicating about infectious diseases in poultry. They're making a board game,

Amy Quinton 

Oh, cool, like Operation for chickens?

Caroline Champlin 

That sounds fun, and I would love to play that, but no, it's a cooperative strategy game where you're trying to stop the virus from spreading while balancing other people's interests. You can play as a bunch of different characters.

Maurice Pitesky 

If you're the state veterinarian, for example, and you want to end an outbreak, you can quarantine and vaccinate and depopulate all those things, but you can't do those things unless you have cooperation and trust. So I think that's what the game really focuses on. 

Amy Quinton 

Can we play?

Caroline Champlin 

It's still in the development stage right now, only some lucky high schoolers are getting to play test it. But in the meantime, we invited Maurice to play a game of our own. 

Amy Quinton 

We have more chicken questions. 

Caroline Champlin 

We sure do.

Caroline Champlin 

Since you're a bird expert, I'm wondering, Can I throw some avian bowl quiz questions at you?

Maurice Pitesky 

You can. I don't think I'll do very well, but you can.

Caroline Champlin 

No we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Okay, well, the first one the it's a definition question. It's the long curved feathers of a male chicken's tail are called what?

Maurice Pitesky 

I do not know. 

Caroline Champlin 

Okay, the first one, that was sickles. 

Maurice Pitesky 

Sickles. Okay, that's good to know. Okay, I'm showing my ignorance here of poultry anatomy but go on. This is fun.

Caroline Champlin 

Okay, the next one. Okay, maybe, I don't know, maybe this is harder. I'm actually not sure what is the temperature of an egg when laid?

Maurice Pitesky 

I would probably say about 102 degrees?

Caroline Champlin 

Close, very close. 104 

Maurice Pitesky 

104 Okay, 

Caroline Champlin 

Right there. Right there. Okay. One more. Some symptoms of a sick chicken, coughing, sneezing, rales and lachrymation. What do you think those could be a sign of?

Maurice Pitesky 

Respiratory disease. So infectious, laryngeal tracheitis, infectious bronchitis, avian influenza, Newcastle disease.

Amy Quinton 

Leave it to a poultry expert from the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis to get a health question right. You can find more information about bird flu at our website. ucdavis.edu/unfold

Caroline Champlin 

And you can find more info on how 4-H is adapting to avian flu by searching UCANR's green blog.

Amy Quinton 

I'm Amy Quinton 

Caroline Champlin 

and I'm Caroline Champlin. 

Amy Quinton 

Thanks for listening. Unfold is a production of UC Davis. This episode was reported by Caroline Champlin. Original Music for Unfold comes from Damien Verrett and Curtis Jerome Haynes. Additional music from Blue Dot sessions.