Don’t hug your chickens before they hatch? Bizarre CDC guidance about SNUGGLING POULTRY raises fluffy eyebrows

Amid the ever-weirder CDC guidelines for Covid-19, the agency’s quirks have expanded across other disease guidance, with chicken owners urged not to hug their fluffy friends lest they drop dead of salmonella.

Backyard chickens have become carriers in a new salmonella outbreak, the CDC warned on Thursday in a posted “notice of investigation” on their website, alerting chicken owners that “backyard poultry” can carry the deadly virus “even if they look healthy and clean.”

The CDC warnings driving the feathered freakout bore more than passing resemblance to the Covid-19 copy the employees had likely been writing all year, including warnings to “wash your hands with soap and water immediately” after touching essentially anything near the affected animal. “Use hand sanitizer if soap and water are not readily available,” the text cautioned.

Perhaps the most memorable of the warnings, however?

Don’t kiss or snuggle backyard poultry, and don’t eat or drink around them.

For now, at least, the guidance does not involve asking chickens to mask up, or attempting to ban bird smooches. Owners are advised to take care when handling eggs, supervise children around them, and keep their areas as clean as possible.

The CDC reported on Thursday night that the epidemic had infected 163 people, arguing the true numbers were “likely much higher” and explaining the sickness began cropping up in mid-February and has continued to be diagnosed through last month.

The largest number of infected chicken-cherishers linked to the salmonella outbreak included residents of North Carolina and Iowa, as well as California, Virginia and Georgia. There are few other patterns within the data – victims range from under one year old to 87 years, and 57% of the cases are female.

No deaths have been linked to the salmonella outbreak, the CDC acknowledged.

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