A recent wave of bird flu has spread across poultry and cattle populations in the United States.
The virus has caused mild, mostly sporadic illness in people, mostly among poultry or dairy farm workers. However, one patient in Louisiana has recently suffered severe illness after coming in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock, according to the Associated Press.
Several pet cats have become sick and died from bird flu infections over the past month. The cats contracted the virus after drinking raw milk or eating raw meat, making pet owners concerned about spreading the virus through raw pet food that they make or buy.
THE QUESTION
Can pets get bird flu from eating raw food?
THE SOURCES
- American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA)
- Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
- Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA)
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
- California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA)
THE ANSWER
Yes, pets can get bird flu from eating raw food.
WHAT WE FOUND
Pets can contract bird flu through contact with infected poultry or carcasses, or from eating contaminated food. Since cooking and pasteurization kill viruses, food will not be contaminated unless it’s raw.
Feeding pets raw food — either made at home or bought commercially — has become more popular recently. But raw food that hasn’t been cooked could harbor the deadly bird flu.
“Cats and dogs may become infected if they eat sick or dead infected birds, drink unpasteurized milk or cream from infected cows, or eat undercooked or raw meat, and there might be other ways the virus spreads,” the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) wrote on its website. “Although the likelihood of dogs catching avian influenza continues to be very low, several barn/feral cats have become severely ill from H5N1 infection since the outbreak in cattle began.”
On Dec. 26, 2024, the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) reported that a cat in the state contracted bird flu and died after consuming raw frozen pet food. Ryan Scholz, ODA state veterinarian, said the cat “was strictly an indoor cat” and “it was not exposed to the virus in its environment.”
The raw frozen pet food fed to this cat was also recalled for bird flu contamination.
There have also been multiple fatal cases of confirmed bird flu infections in cats directly linked to the consumption of raw milk.
On Dec. 20, 2024, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health confirmed that seven of eight indoor-only, domestic cats from one household became ill after being offered raw milk. Five of the cats died and two were under quarantine and improving.
Four of the dead cats were tested and confirmed to have bird flu. The raw milk offered to the cats was later recalled for bird flu contamination.
Food that has been properly cooked or pasteurized is safe to eat, even if it originated from an infected animal. That means the most common type of pet foods that are cooked and dried, such as kibble, are safe to feed your animals.
In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) tested the survival of the current bird flu strain by cooking highly infected burger patties at three different temperatures. The USDA found no virus present when it cooked burgers to 145 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit, equivalent to medium and well done. Even cooking the burger at 120 degrees Fahrenheit, rare, was enough to leave the virus “substantially inactivated.”
Pasteurization is the process of heating milk to specific temperatures for long enough to kill many microorganisms and enzymes that lead to spoilage and illness, according to a Dec. 14 press release from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) about a raw milk recall unrelated to the one responsible for the infected cats.
The CDFA calls pasteurization “one of the most significant scientific food safety discoveries in human history” and says it is capable of killing the bird flu virus.
Most milk in the U.S. is pasteurized before hitting the shelves of the grocery store. Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized, which is a process that has been in widespread use in the U.S. since the early 1900s.