STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Poultry producers across the Southeast have plenty of experience cleaning up after storm damage to broiler and breeder houses, but they now have new guidelines for hurricane preparedness and recovery.

Tom Tabler, poultry specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, is the lead author of the recently released “Poultry Producers Guide to Hurricane Preparation and Recovery.” The online manual is published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Southeast Climate Hub.

The guide provides short- and long-term recommendations for preparing for and recovering from hurricanes and floods. It also includes information on farm assessment and bird management after a hurricane.

In addition to the main guide covering the Southeast region, there are also eight individual state guides that share general information but link to respective state agencies.

“In addition to preparing for and recovering from a hurricane, I wanted this manual to have a range of plans poultry producers can consider putting in place to increase their resilience to hurricanes,” Tabler said. “The USDA asked me to work on this a year ago, and I had some help from my colleagues at North Carolina State University to develop this guide. We spent a lot of time and went through several different drafts trying to make it valuable, and I hope it will be of interest and use to the poultry industry across the Southeast.”

The main guide is available online. The Mississippi guide can be found here.