By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

TURNER – While state officials lay plans to combat any outbreak of avian flu, an official at Maine’s largest egg farming operation says some firebreaks are already in place.

“We raise our own brood stock,” said Bob Leclerc, compliance manager for DeCoster Egg Farms and Maine Ag, the company that manages other nearby poultry farms.

Those brood or hatchery farms, Leclerc added, are widely dispersed around Maine, a move intended to prevent any bird disease from spreading.

“Isolation” he said, is a key. Bird diseases “spread like wildfire,” Leclerc noted.

Each of the hatcheries also has security in place designed to keep unwanted visitors away, he said.

The egg farms themselves, home to about 3.5 million laying hens in Turner alone, are spread out over 1,600 acres. That’s another way of keeping any disease from making its way to other hen houses.

Leclerc said DeCoster employees have been trained to monitor the chickens for various diseases. If any are detected, he said, immediate steps are taken to prevent them from spreading.

The company also is in contact with the state Department of Agriculture on a weekly basis, he said. If avian flu was found anywhere in Maine, he’d know it quickly and be in a position to react and protect the farms’ flocks.

“We haven’t had that problem here,” he said, but noted that last year a disease in a poultry operation along Maine’s coast was detected that led to a flock being eliminated.

Besides avian flu, poultry can fall victim to fowl cholera, avian pox, chlamydiosis, fowl typhoid, salmonellosis and other diseases.

Avian flu, sometimes called bird flu, was detected in a poultry operation in Virginia in the summer of 2002. That prompted officials to kill off millions of chickens to prevent the disease from spreading.

Leclerc said the diseases strike domesticated fowl, but for the most part don’t exist in wild birds. By controlling its brood stock, DeCoster hopes to prevent illnesses from hitting its vast flocks, he said.

Maine is the world’s largest producer of brown eggs. The combined value of the state’s poultry operations exceeds $78.8 million, according to a 2002 agriculture census report.