If you’re looking forward to watching a calf being born at the Minnesota State Fair, you may be disappointed.

On Friday, the fair announced new precautions at the ‘Miracle of Birth Center.’

“Any cow that’s milking or about to give birth would be our vector we’re concerned about,” declares Lucas Sjostrom, the executive director of the Minnesota Milk Producers Association.

In a statement, fair officials say there will be no live dairy cow births this year amid concerns about the spread of the H5N1 virus, commonly known as the bird flu.

“It is a little bit alarming and shocking, because we did think bovines have some natural protection to begin with,” explains Joe Armstrong, a veterinarian with the University of Minnesota Extension.

The fair says it’s doing this out of an abundance of caution — and because pregnant cows can’t be tested for the virus until they give birth and begin producing milk.

“The mammary gland and ultimately the milk, that is how this thing is spreading,” Sjostrom notes.

“It is definitely the highest-risk substance in relation to the virus,” Armstrong adds.

Just days ago, the Extension urged fair organizers across the state to hold off on lactating cow exhibitions because of concerns the virus could spread to other animals and people.

“The more opportunities they have to circulate, the more opportunities they have to mutate,” Anderson says. “Or come in contact with other influenza A viruses, what we call reassort, and acquire new characteristics that could make them even more dangerous or deadly.”

He says the virus typically triggers mild flu-like symptoms in people.

But in cows, it can cause a drop in milk production, dehydration and fever.

In poultry, it can be fatal.

“With any ban or restriction, we’re missing out on some things,” Sjostrom says. “But I trust the people at the Miracle of Birth Center have weighed the positives and the negatives, and for them, it makes sense that the risk is too great.”

The fair has had to deal with flu strain concerns before.

In 2015, Minnesota imposed a state-wide ban on poultry exhibitions after a bird flu outbreak.

And in 2009, a swine flu epidemic affected both pigs and people at the fair.

This year, you’ll be able to see at least one cow and calf pair at the birth center but the cow will be dry and the calf will have been weaned.

Sjostrom believes taking precautions is the smart route.

“But with all the other species in the building, those lactating animals pose risks to the other cows in the building,” he says. “We have seen a handful of transmissions nationwide, people with mild flu-like symptoms. The FDA and CDC say over and over there’s very low risk. But like everything in life, there’s some risk.”