After devastating avian flu outbreak, Crescent Duck Farm slowly making its way back

It’s been a year of hard lessons and revival for Crescent Duck Farm in Aquebogue, the family-owned business that suffered a devastating setback following a bird flu outbreak in January.

After the government-ordered culling of nearly his entire flock of 99,000 birds, chief executive Doug Corwin had some real soul searching to do. He’d kept a reserve of several thousand eggs that had been sanitized and cleared for hatching, but the question was: could he really rebuild his business practically from scratch?

Thus far he’s proving he can, with a lot of help from the community, lawmakers, fellow businesses and customers. In recent months, Corwin, who operates the farm with his sons and other family members, saw his flock grow to about 12,500. And he’s quietly maintaining a slow but steady sale of ducks to shops and restaurants.

Most importantly, Crescent Duck Farm has been able to sporadically hire back about 30  part-time workers who’d help staff the farm and processing facility at the height of business. That’s on top of 17 full-time workers who have helped sanitize, upgrade and maintain farm operations.

With luck and hard work, Corwin said he expects to hire back by next June all 55 workers who’ve been idled by the bird flu outbreak and shutdown. From there he’ll ramp up from about 50% capacity to 100% by next year's holiday season.

The cost of it all since euthanizing his flock in January has been "a few million dollars," Corwin said, involving hatching, cultivating and feeding a new flock, rehiring workers, upgrading operations and keeping it all afloat while he awaits steady revenue streams.

The outbreak "just taught us the value of, yeah, you might think you’re secure, you might think you’ve dodged all those bullets before, but anybody who’s growing turkeys or ducks or raising chickens right now is playing Russian roulette, because those bullets are in a gun and it’s just a matter of how many empty cartridges there are until I know it’s going to hit somebody."

The trick in the next half year is to keep the operation flu free while cultivating the first generation of 2,500 ducks and maturing a second generation of 10,000 ducks to the point where they lay eggs starting next year. Their offspring hold the key.

"The second generation is not ready to lay eggs until April," Corwin said. "That’s my biggest stumbling block. The third generation is what puts us back in business." That generation of about 8,000 females, grown to ideal condition in five or six weeks, will become the steady production line of the Crescent plant.

"We’ll start off at a lower level and build up, hopefully by the holidays in 2026," Corwin said. 

In the meantime, he said he'll keep a close eye on bird flu infections regionally and nationally to understand how the disease is infecting flocks. In recent months, Corwin has been watching outbreaks across the nation, particularly since the fall, and says the prospect of another big outbreak worries him.

"I can point to 29 small to medium duck operations effected, from Lancaster to Indiana to California in the last two months," he said. "Plus a huge amount of turkeys."

The USDA’s primary line of defense is to slaughter impacted flocks, a method Corwin, long a supporter of vaccines for the disease, said can be avoided. 

"It’s scary thing. We don’t have any vaccine and we certainly don’t have any [federal] support that way," he said. Federal agencies had been reporting outbreaks "haphazardly since the shutdown," he added.

"Sure it worries me; of course, it does. I know what this thing can do," he said of avian flu. "Other than keeping this farm as buttoned up as possible, there isn’t an awful lot I can do."

The prospect of another infection represents a worst-case scenario, a prospect from which Corwin does not believe he’d bounce back.

"If it happens again I’m out of business. I can’t do this twice," he said. And even with the best protections, new hygienic systems, even greater control of his operations, he knows infections can happen. Unlike other poultry farms, Crescent keeps its ducks indoors during cultivation.

Bird flu, Corwin noted, "floats by air, it’s the migration season and you hear the flocks of geese flying overhead constantly this time of year. Nothing’s foolproof."

A rodent slipping into a duck barn, a shoe not properly soaked in an antibacterial footbath, any small misstep could lead to an outbreak, he said.

"Compared to outdoor flocks I’m much better off," Corwin said. "But I was much better off before and it didn’t spare me."

The best part about a very painful lesson?

"I’ve been thrilled to see the community support, the huge support for the laid-off people, going to restaurants and seeing the chefs," who cheer on his return, he said.

"I’m thankful for everybody who stood behind us and supported us," Corwin said. "Without them we wouldn’t be here. It would have been easier to bulldoze the place than doing what we’re doing here. I feel an obligation to Long Island to keep this going. You can’t call me greedy because I’d be greedier if I stopped it."