A Bielefelder Thread !

[Bine]

I could not follow the thread for a long time and I hope you and your chickens are doing well.
We have the bird flu in Germany at the moment, so I have to do without the most beautiful shows of the year. Chicken Shows... :-(
Fortunately, there is the Internet and I am becoming a fan of a young Tyrolean, who in his spare time films old and rare livestock breeds. He has gorgeous chicken videos.
So, if you want to heat up your chicken obsession, check out this channel.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Jondalar08/featured

 

[Sylvester017]

Here's something completely unrelated, but I just put our DD's dance recital online. She's getting a kick watching the counter & # of "likes" go up. If you don't mind watching a brief kid's recital, please give her a thumb's up. Dance is another love of hers - besides chickens. At age 10 she wants to become a vet on the weekdays & a professional dancer on the weekends. She also wants to be an artist & move to a farm.

She's front & center for tap. In her ballet dance, the girl on far right (DD's best friend) dances very well. Our DD's 3rd number was lyrical dance with a solo, but Youtube would not allow the audio to be played due to copywrite. (Let It Be) I put in some still photos instead.

I did watch the video. Your DD as always is the loveliest of the group. She is graceful, pretty, and seems to be the one that the not-so-proficient dancers look to for choreography moves/timing. She reminds me of my DD at the same age -- smart, witty, popular, pretty, with leadership qualities. My DD played piano for 6 years and was the best of the conservatory students. As mothers we are so proud of our astute offspring and wonder what direction they'll wind up going. I do hope your DD can realize her goals/dreams. My DD was a cheerleader for 6 yrs since Jr Hi, started college classes at 15, worked since she was 16, bought her first house at 19, completed Dental College - loved surgery assistant, then became a phyical therapist, but being very social ultimately decided on Sales and excels in her company with more awards than shelves can handle (she said there was more money in sales and gave her the freedom to set her own targets/goals but still gives her the sociability she craves with clients). I guess it's true that a person's career path can change up to 10x before they retire. Kudos to your DD for pursuing excellence! I hope your DD includes poultry/birds/exotics in her vet dreams. Every time my vet goes on vacation, none of his assistant vets know anything about treating lizards, snakes, turtles, hampsters, deer, foxes, parrots, rabbits, poultry, etc etc etc.

 

[Sylvester017]

I could not follow the thread for a long time and I hope you and your chickens are doing well.
We have the bird flu in Germany at the moment, so I have to do without the most beautiful shows of the year. Chicken Shows... :-(
Fortunately, there is the Internet and I am becoming a fan of a young Tyrolean, who in his spare time films old and rare livestock breeds. He has gorgeous chicken videos.
So, if you want to heat up your chicken obsession, check out this channel.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Jondalar08/featured

Is the bird flu what we in the USA call Avian Influenza - sorry to hear any birds coming down with it!
Thanks for the video link. I don't speak German but the videos are beautiful!

 

[SunHwaKwon]

Is the bird flu what we in the USA call Avian Influenza - sorry to hear any birds coming down with it!
Thanks for the video link. I don't speak German but the videos are beautiful!

Avian = of or relating to birds
"flu" is short for Influenza

 

[Sylvester017]

Avian = of or relating to birds
"flu" is short for Influenza

I figured that much -- just wondering if it's the same virus going on here that we've had the last couple years. It wiped out a lot of turkey farms especially in the Midwest USA. The migratory wild birds - especially ducks - transmit the disease to poultry industry farms on their migration routes yet the ducks don't display symptoms themselves but are carriers to the domestic poultry. Last I read the virus mutates so that adds a nail into the coffin! Have you experienced any losses yourself?

 

[Bine]

I am lucky to have my birds in a district with no large water areas, migratory bird sanctuaries or poultry industry. It is a low-risk district and we have only the "pre-warn" stage. But the neighboring cities have high risk areas. The meadows on the Rhine are resting places for many migratory birds. Even though many people do not believe the official version of the spread by wild birds. Here areas with many poultry farms are more frequently affected. Therefore, many believe here that the flu is spread by feed additives contaminated with the pathogen and the wild birds are infected by the dung of the poultry farms and so spread the pathogen.
And most of the people in my Poltry Club are prone to believe, that this is a far better explaination for the outbreaks:
https://www.grain.org/article/entri...ndustry-s-central-role-in-the-bird-flu-crisis

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I am on the Eastern Shore of Maryland (Delaware peninsula). The poultry industry is HUGE here. We also have a nuisance level of resident Canada Geese and of course get the migratory ones, as well as migratory ducks, hawks, and other birds. Surprisingly, though, we have had no confirmed detections 2014, 2015, or this year so far.

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ou...by_states/hpai-2014-2015-confirmed-detections


https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ou...ian-influenza-disease/SA_Detections_by_States


Of course, there is always the possibility that AI hit a backyard flock and the birds were not tested. I did have one sudden death tested in January and it is $15 at my local Animal Disease Laboratory (which is conveniently right up the road from me). Some people may not know testing is so easy, may not want to pay or would be afraid of losing their whole flock if it came back positive. Similar to how food borne illness reporting is not 100% complete and accurate.

 

[Bine]

We had one bird in a backyard flock that was tested positiv for the virus in the Harz District. All other birds in the flock were negativ. They tested all 52 privat owned flocks with over 800 birds in the area not one came back positiv. Same with a the Opel Zoo birds. They tested all birds in the zoo only one pelican was positiv, all other birds were negativ. So not only the theory how the virus spreads is in question here, the test might not always produce the right result or the virus is not as contagious as the authorities say.
And this would not be the first big error of our authorities, They made a huge fuss about H1N1, the goverment bought vaccines for millions of Euros and in the end nothing happend. Not one infection that was confirmed as H1N1 after retesting, So. Yes, we have some dead ducks and it's a pitty, but we had always dead ducks and geese in the winter. Some just die of exhaustion, botulism, starvation.... they come a long way and fly a dangerous route and some just die.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

We had one bird in a backyard flock that was tested positiv for the virus in the Harz District. All other birds in the flock were negativ. They tested all 52 privat owned flocks with over 800 birds in the area not one came back positiv. Same with a the Opel Zoo birds. They tested all birds in the zoo only one pelican was positiv, all other birds were negativ. So not only the theory how the virus spreads is in question here, the test might not always produce the right result or the virus is not as contagious as the authorities say.
And this would not be the first big error of our authorities, They made a huge fuss about H1N1, the goverment bought vaccines for millions of Euros and in the end nothing happend. Not one infection that was confirmed as H1N1 after retesting, So. Yes, we have some dead ducks and it's a pitty, but we had always dead ducks and geese in the winter. Some just die of exhaustion, botulism, starvation.... they come a long way and fly a dangerous route and some just die.

You are right. There is always the chance of false positives and false negatives with the test, and in addition the transmission may not be well understood or it may mutate or some animals may have immunity without our knowing it. The huge losses the other member talked about tend to mainly due to high volume culling rather than actual infection numbers, which is a real shame. I understand biosecurity and preventative strategies but it is still a sad waste of life.

Are private flocks required to be registered? We have that requirement here in Maryland, but I doubt that even 1% of flock owners actually do it, for various reasons.

 

[DesertChic]

You are right. There is always the chance of false positives and false negatives with the test, and in addition the transmission may not be well understood or it may mutate or some animals may have immunity without our knowing it. The huge losses the other member talked about tend to mainly due to high volume culling rather than actual infection numbers, which is a real shame. I understand biosecurity and preventative strategies but it is still a sad waste of life.

Are private flocks required to be registered? We have that requirement here in Maryland, but I doubt that even 1% of flock owners actually do it, for various reasons.

I read an article in a poultry magazine recently about how a university in CA is trying to get all backyard flock owners to "register" their flock with the university so they can 'track disease migration and origin'. I just cringed. I've heard plenty of reports about how the "biosecure" commercial industries have lost their birds to disease and have many theories as to why that is, but backyard flocks haven't suffered the same consequences unless the government came in and culled all of the birds as a knee-jerk reaction to the potential of spreading the disease. I even read of one backyard flock owner whose entire flock was culled and THEN sent for testing only to discover that none of her birds weren't infected. She was a heritage breeder and lost years worth of work on the possibility that the disease could be present. I personally see far more harm than good to the small poultry keeper by registering their flocks. I simply don't trust the government's proclamation of altruistic intent.