Fermion , 6 hours ago

I don’t think limiting density would control bird flu specifically considering that wild bird populations are high enough density to spread this disease.

I do generally support lower density farming though. Anecdotally, the white blood cell count of dairy cows on pasture is way lower than when they are in barns during the winter. And even the winter white blood cell counts on the small organic dairy farm I worked on was an order of magnitude lower than what is considered normal for conventional dairy.

White blood cell counts in milk are used as a proxy to monitor for infections. It’s impractical to test for every pathogen, but looking for the immune response of the cow works reasonably well.