As officials continue to work on keeping bird flu at bay in commercial poultry flocks and cattle herds, you can take precautions to protect your own avian friends.

Bird flu typically spreads among birds, but there have been recent outbreaks among cattle in the U.S., and one Texas man contracted the virus from sick cows. Here’s why so many experts are worried about a possible new pandemic.

Additionally, the USDA started mandating that dairy cows have to test negative for bird flu before being shipped across state lines. The news comes after several infectious disease experts have criticized the government for not doing enough testing and being “blind” to the true size of the current outbreak — and after a report published in Emerging Infectious Diseases found that cats died after they were fed raw colostrum from sick cows.