State Department of Livestock officials say bird flu has been confirmed in chickens in Judith Basin County less than a week after the disease killed a captive falcon in Columbia Falls. 

Laboratory testing confirmed birds in the affected poultry flock had the H5N2 strain of bird flu. The flock of less than 100 chickens has been placed under quarantine and will be killed, burned or buried to prevent further spread of the disease. 

No human health issues have been reported with this strain. 

The Department of Livestock is investigating and will identify other poultry producers in the area to conduct disease surveillance and provide educational resources.

Poultry owners who experience the sudden onset of illness or deaths in their flocks are asked to call the Livestock Department.

After the captive Columbia Falls gyrfalcon died, its carcass was sent to the state wildlife agency’s laboratory in Bozeman about two weeks ago, according to Tahnee Szymanski, an assistant state veterinarian with the Montana Department of Livestock. 

After preliminary testing, state officials suspected the virus and sent the bird to the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, for confirmation.

The avian flu previously was detected in Minnesota and now has shown up in a commercial turkey flock in South Dakota.

 So far, the total number of outbreaks in the Midwest has reached 10 and led to the deaths of 314,000 birds since early March.

The birds killed by the virus or euthanized represent just a sliver of the overall U.S. turkey production — 235 million birds in 2014, according to federal statistics.