Coop Assistant Field Guide
Regional Disease Alerts for Your Flock
HPAI (bird flu) and Newcastle disease are the two outbreaks most likely to wipe out a backyard flock — and both spread fast once they're in a region. GoodCoop watches official USDA APHIS confirmations and pings you the moment a case is reported in your county or one next door, so you have time to react instead of reading about it after the fact.
Why county-level matters
National headlines are too late and too vague. State-wide alerts are noisy. The actionable signal for a backyard keeper is "a confirmed case is within driving distance of my coop." HPAI in particular travels with wild waterfowl, contaminated boots, shared equipment, and feed traffic — so a confirmation in an adjacent county is your cue to lock things down today, not next week.
What we monitor
- HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza): confirmed commercial and backyard flock detections from USDA APHIS, the official US source.
- Newcastle disease: virulent Newcastle confirmations reported through the same federal channel.
- Each alert includes the disease, county, state, flock type, and confirmation date — and only fires if it's within your county or a directly adjacent one in the last 30 days.
What to do when an alert hits
- Lock down the run. Keep birds confined under cover if possible. Wild birds (especially waterfowl) are the main HPAI vector.
- Step up biosecurity. Dedicated coop boots, hand wash before/after, no shared equipment with other keepers, and no visitors to the coop.
- Secure feed and water. Cover feeders, change water in clean containers, and don't leave food where wild birds can drop into it.
- Watch for symptoms. Sudden death, swollen head/eyes, purple wattles, drop in egg production, gasping, tremors, or twisted necks. Report suspected cases to your state vet immediately — early reporting protects everyone.
- Pause swaps and sales. Don't bring in new birds or eggs from other keepers, and pause selling hatching eggs or live birds until the regional risk drops.
How GoodCoop knows your area
Alerts use the same location you've already shared for weather warnings — no extra setup. We convert your coordinates to a county once and cache it, then check daily against the federal outbreak feed. If you haven't enabled location yet, open the notification bell and tap "Enable weather alerts" — disease alerts turn on automatically in the same flow. We never share your location and don't track you between visits.
Beginners and sellers, same playbook
For a first-year keeper, the right response to a regional alert is mostly common sense done immediately: keep birds in, keep boots dedicated, keep visitors out. For keepers who sell eggs or hatching stock, an alert is also a business signal — pause live-bird and hatching-egg sales, communicate with your regular customers, and document your biosecurity steps in case anyone asks. The Coop Assistant can walk through both scenarios with advice tuned to your flock size and setup.
Turn on regional alerts
Enable location once and GoodCoop will quietly watch USDA confirmations for HPAI and Newcastle in your area — and notify you only when something actually matters.