Bird Flu Jumps to Evergreen Reach Cows; Soup Advised

Friends, the bird flu has found the dairy cows. The Royal Granary & Herd Office confirmed this week that two herds in Yakimore Vale, up in the Evergreen Reach, tested positive for the feather flu, as the old herbals call it. It is the first time the sickness has turned up in that province's cattle. Both farms are under quarantine, and I have been muttering into my ladle ever since.

The cows told their keepers first, the way cows do. They went off their feed, grew droopy, and gave less milk, and what they did give came out unusually thick. A sniff at the provincial animal-healers' laboratory came back positive on the fifth. The Granary Office made it official on the eighth, which for a crown office is practically a gallop. The healers are treating the poor things with fluids, vitamins, and mineral salts, which is to say broth. I have been prescribing broth since before it had a Latin name, and I would like that noted.

"She just stands there looking betrayed," said Hobb Thistlewick, a milker of thirty years and very cold hands. "Then she kicks the bucket. On purpose." The herd-masters say the sickness is a hard four to six weeks, and then the herd comes out the other side. That is real comfort, friends. I will take it.

Now the part for those of you eyeing the milk jug. Milk from sick cows is destroyed on the farm and never reaches a market stall. Everything else goes through pasteurizing, which is gentle heating, and the testing so far says the heat knocks the flu right out. Drink your milk. Worry about the cows instead, as I do.

This is not the first herd, either. Across Waterdeep, 1,178 herds have caught the bird flu since 2024, and the Golden Coast alone accounts for 773 of them. About nineteen provinces have now had cows with the sniffles. The Vale's health wardens are watching the farmhands for fevers, and the Granary Office is reading the sickness's little letters to learn which strain it is. Who is meant to coordinate all this? The Clerics' Disease Council, which, as I wrote when I covered the red-spot fever count, is down a great many clerics. I offered cots again. They said they would circle back.

If you work around cattle or poultry, wear your gloves and your mask, and tell the warden at once if you feel feverish. My friend Nyx says there is an enchanted collar that tells you when a cow is sad. Go outside, Nyx. The cow would like a word, and it is not about a collar.

This week's recommendation is mushroom and barley broth, no hen in it, because boiling a chicken this week seemed in poor taste. Make it thick and hot, and make plenty for the milkers, who are up before dawn and deserve something steaming.

Rest well, friends. — Brother Wendell