Ran across a few rumors that suggest bird flu can spread to other animal types, like pigs, horses, cows etc.  Here is a little passage directly from the CDC website.

Influenza A viruses have infected many different animals, including ducks, chickens, pigs, whales, horses, and seals. However, certain subtypes of influenza A virus are specific to certain species, except for birds, which are hosts to all known subtypes of influenza A. Subtypes that have caused widespread illness in people either in the past or currently are H3N2, H2N2, H1N1, and H1N2. H1N1 and H3N2 subtypes also have caused outbreaks in pigs, and H7N7 and H3N8 viruses have caused outbreaks in horses.

Influenza A viruses normally seen in one species sometimes can cross over and cause illness in another species. For example, until 1998, only H1N1 viruses circulated widely in the U.S. pig population. However, in 1998, H3N2 viruses from humans were introduced into the pig population and caused widespread disease among pigs. Most recently, H3N8 viruses from horses have crossed over and caused outbreaks in dogs.

What this means is that yes the flu’s that birds carry can spread to all different types of animals because they carry all types of flu’s.  Birds can carry a toxic soup of viruses that will infect other animals, including Humans. This doesn’t mean that they carry these viruses all the time, just like you and me, they get the flu sometimes.

So don’t stop eating bird meat(Chicken, Turkey, Duck), just because you think you can catch the bird flu virus. Fact is even if the meat did have the virus, proper cooking would kill it anyway. For a better explanation on Cooking and Handling of Birds and Bird meat click the link below..

can you catch avian influenza from eating poultry

I’ve not only heard this but also that human /human is possible… I heard from a friend that in indonesia it happened!!!!!! and also those other animals are in indonesia as well.