Joshua Beebe has rebuilt Tardif Poultry Farm to about 3,000 birds after a salmonella outbreak forced the culling of all 5,000 birds and left recovery costs nearing $50,000.
11 birds tested positive in June 2024 during state-mandated screening, and after 30 days some still showed salmonella; Connecticut then offered either full-flock retesting at $6.50 a bird or depopulation.
The farm chose culling, spent about 10 days euthanizing birds, lost its Thanksgiving turkey season and remained under quarantine until February 2025 before the state cleared repopulation.
Beebe said USDA indemnity was unavailable because the depopulation was deemed voluntary, while Connecticut agriculture officials said losses from non-bird-flu diseases are generally treated as a private business risk.
That financial hit comes as Beebe also spends heavily on avian-flu defenses—vehicle scrubbing, bird quarantines and wild-bird barriers—while H5N1 has affected more than 174 million U.S. commercial birds since 2022.