PONCA, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Department of Agriculture has announced a third case of avian flu in northeast Nebraska’s Dixon County.

The department said in a news release Friday that testing by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed the presence of the highly contagious bird flu on a farm with 500,000 young hens.

The state department says the farm is less than a mile away from one where the state’s first case of bird flu was discovered and is owned by the same company.

The department says the flock will be destroyed, bringing the total number of chickens in the state lost due to the flu to 4 million.

Nationwide, the virus that has led to 40 million dead birds — mostly turkeys and egg-laying chickens.