Fourth-generation farmer Joe Knolle knew it wasn’t a routine audit when the health inspector arrived at his dairy farm in South Texas decked out in goggles, gloves, and a mask. The bird flu outbreak had just landed in his state, infecting cows for the first time, and the man was disinfecting his tires.
“I walk up while drinkin’ milk and he’s looking at me like I’m juggling uranium,” Knolle told Bloomberg Government during a late January interview on his farm outside Corpus Christi.
Joe Knolle stands over a dairy cow sick with milk fever—not bird flu—attempting to save its life with fluids and aspirin. Knolle monitors his herd’s health daily and has remained vigilant in deterring bird flu infections from reaching his farm in southern Texas.
Skye Witley / Bloomberg Government
Since the first cases of bird flu were detected in US dairy cows in March 2024, the ...