Brome Lake Ducks, a duck farm operation in the Eastern Townships, is laying off 95 per cent of its staff and is experiencing massive losses in production as a result of three of its facilities in Knowlton, St-Claude and Watton being hit by avian influenza brought in by migratory birds. Angela Anderson, general manager of Brome Lake Ducks, confirmed that it could take up to a year for its operations to be up and running at full capacity again.

Anderson said that the first indication that one of their facilities was struck by avian influenza was on April 9.

“Right away, we advised one of the vets that works for our company. She went immediately on site, surveyed the birds for a few hours, and she also noticed some neurological signs that there was something off,” she explained. “So, the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) was advised immediately. We put ourselves in auto quarantine.”

After the CFIA tested the birds and the results came back positive, Brome Lake Ducks proceeded to limit contact as much as possible.

“We only allow essential services, such as propane, plumbers, feed, on site. So, once we put ourselves into auto quarantine the only people allowed on site were the employees that worked in the barn, which were only a couple of people, a technician, and a vet,” said Anderson.

Between all three sites, Brome Lake Ducks has lost up to 202,000 live birds.

“In the Knowlton site we have our hatchery as well. We had over 400,000 eggs that were either in incubation or getting ready to hatch. Unfortunately, the CFIA deemed that it was too much of a risk for avian influenza to affect the eggs so we were mandated to destroy all of those eggs as well,” explained Anderson.

Anderson mentioned that the situation has “paralyzed” their production.

“We lost—in a matter of a week and half to two weeks—75 per cent of the birds that were in the pipeline to be processed, packaged, and to be put on shelves. At the current time, we have approximately four to five weeks of products left in the pipeline” said Anderson. “After that, we have prioritized, naturally, the Quebec market to try and keep our products on the market as long as possible.”

With a loss in its production, Brome Lake Ducks is being forced to lay off 95 per cent of its staff.

“We haven’t given up. We have a lot of will, a lot of creativity, and we are the type of people that don’t get too down. So, we are looking at all types of ways that we can get genetic in from Europe. Obviously, it’s a worldwide crisis that we are dealing with so Europe has been strongly impacted with avian influenza just like we have,” explained Anderson.

Even if Brome Lake Ducks does manage to bring genetic in, Anderson explained that it takes six months for a chick to lay an egg making it a slow process. As a result, she estimates that it will take up to a year for production to be back in full swing. Despite the situation, Anderson said that the Brome Lake community has been nothing but supportive of Brome Lake Ducks in helping the company get back on track.

“We had an emergency meeting with the mayor, Mr. Burcombe, and general director of the town, Mr. Arel, citizens that are just giving an outpouring of support, super appreciated. Other citizens have offered to give us one week of their time absolutely free to help us deal with a crisis. Experts that have dealt with insurance in their past lives have reached out and offered some support or knowledge to help us get through. Obviously, the Lac-Brome community is very tight knit, but we feel the support and that’s very appreciated,” emphasized Anderson.

Listen to the full interview with Anderson below: