At an Iowa county fair, a tradition carries on despite bird flu anxiety in the dairy barn
DECORAH, Iowa — It was livestock check-in day at the Winneshiek County Fair, and the dairy barn was consumed with a kind of pre-prom anxiety. A cow named Daiquiri was lumbering back from the milking parlor, adjusting to a new schedule that would have her “mammary system” bulging for showtime. Kennedy was getting a fresh shave, tufts of udder-fuzz drifting to the floor, revealing her resplendent venation. Baby Jesus was extruding shapely, hay-filled turds, each one caught by an eagle-eyed 14-year-old with a bucket, so the heifer wouldn’t sully her own hindquarters.
Lustrous as they looked — clean-boned, deep-ribbed, the picture of bovine health — whether some of these animals should’ve been there at all was a matter of debate. At issue were the lactating cows. Since March, H5N1 bird flu has swept through 157 herds in 13 states, including Iowa, and the actual numbers are almost certainly higher: Those are just the cases that have been officially reported. The virus has a special affinity for udders, likely spreading through droplets of raw milk clinging to equipment that gets used on cow after cow.
