MaevesFLock
Hatching
- Feb 14, 2020
- 9
- 8
- 5
I am looking for other people who have received sick birds from Greenfire farms to file a formal complaint with NPIP and other state or federal regulatory agencies. My concern is the farm is acting as a reservoir for fatal avian diseases that are being nationally distributed by their operation. Please message me if interested. So far the breeds I have heard feedback on having the same symptoms are the Silver (they call birchen) Marans, Cream Legbars, Bielefelder and Rhodebar, however this is only after talking to 4 different former customers.
In November 2019 I ordered 4 Silver (GFF Blue Birchen Marans) and 4 Silverudds Blues (GFF Swedish Isbar).
They very generously sent me 4 extra birds - the Marans were $60 each and the Isbars were $30 each, and I was very impressed with the service and shipping quality. The birds were healthy and strong upon arrival. I raised these chicks in a refrigerator box in my garage with no cross-contamination from my healthy flock who were always outside. My adult flock never had any illness or coccidia and the entire flock previously came from My Pet Chicken. In fact our first home hatch from those birds had a 100% hatch rate with super healthy chicks as well.
Around 4 weeks I started to notice one of the new blue marans always looked sleepy, fell asleep for no reason constantly, and squinted all the time. I stupidly assumed breeding defect rather than researching. Around 6 weeks one of these birds who seemed very healthy previously started to become lame, and that eventually progressed into sleeping all the time and unable to walk at all. Around 10 weeks patient zero dropped dead overnight. At the same time one of the cockerels became symptomatic, same constant sleeping and squinty eyes and pale comb. He dropped dead 2 weeks later. We finally put the extremely disabled pullet down at that time. Two weeks later another pullet and cockerel became symptomatic. The cockerel seemed to improve with medication for coccidia, but crashed suddenly one day and died shortly after. He was about 16 weeks old, and I took him for a necropsy at the state agriculture department in TN. The attached filed "Pathology_report_Birchen_Marans" is the pathology report. We are planning to put the other symptomatic female down next week so we can take the body in immediately for necropsy (this is important because the structures that diagnose break down within hours). We also had a severe outbreak of coccidiosis at the 10-12 week mark and we thought this had been the issue. When it didn't resolve with antibiotics and Corid, and birds kept dying, we knew there was something more. Strangely my Silverudds Blues are all healthy (once we passed the coccidia outbreak).
The official diagnosis is Avian Leukosis. It is viral and causes lymphoma. There is no treatment and no vaccine. Early infection like these birds had will lead to lifetime shedding of the virus through egg yolk, albumin and feces. This means the disease can be passed from mother to baby via egg, and "horizontally" to anyone else via feces. The only way to eliminate it from your flock is to cull the entire flock, disinfect, and start again. The virus is easily killed by standard disinfection. Needless to say breeding eggs or chicks for reproduction is totally out. It has a long incubation period so you do not usually see it in chicks until around 16 weeks. Birds exposed after 12-20 weeks of age according to Merck will not become lifetime shedders of virus. One website said it can be passed through reproduction, but another journal article I read said that hasn't been proven. According to my vet the only definitive way to diagnosis is through examination within hours after death, however a DVM on facebook said there is now a reliable PCR test?
I am frustrated, heartbroken, and still reeling over how to deal with it. We will likely cull anyone symptomatic and see how the adult birds deal with it before culling the flock. The following circumstances and facts lead me to believe the illness originated in the hatchery:
The long incubation period
The lack of exposure of the GF birds to any birds in my flock or any other birds or people around other birds
The very good health of my adult birds
The symptoms being 100% restricted to the group of chicks from GFF
The virus being communicable from mother to chick via yolk and albumin
If you have chickens sick or dropping dead - I suggest taking them to your state agriculture lab which is generally very easy to find on the internet and they do the necropsy (that's an animal autopsy) and all associated testing for Mareks etc - sometimes for free or reduced price on non-companion species. Make sure to take the animal in immediately after death or refrigerate just above freezing until you can - the structures that assist in diagnosis decompose rapidly.
Another acquaintance of mine (who I met online because we both bought birds from the same hatch date from GFF) just had her dead birds necropsied - the report showed Mareks, Infectious Bronchitis, Coccidiosis, and Mycoplasma synoviae. They are attached.
In November 2019 I ordered 4 Silver (GFF Blue Birchen Marans) and 4 Silverudds Blues (GFF Swedish Isbar).
They very generously sent me 4 extra birds - the Marans were $60 each and the Isbars were $30 each, and I was very impressed with the service and shipping quality. The birds were healthy and strong upon arrival. I raised these chicks in a refrigerator box in my garage with no cross-contamination from my healthy flock who were always outside. My adult flock never had any illness or coccidia and the entire flock previously came from My Pet Chicken. In fact our first home hatch from those birds had a 100% hatch rate with super healthy chicks as well.
Around 4 weeks I started to notice one of the new blue marans always looked sleepy, fell asleep for no reason constantly, and squinted all the time. I stupidly assumed breeding defect rather than researching. Around 6 weeks one of these birds who seemed very healthy previously started to become lame, and that eventually progressed into sleeping all the time and unable to walk at all. Around 10 weeks patient zero dropped dead overnight. At the same time one of the cockerels became symptomatic, same constant sleeping and squinty eyes and pale comb. He dropped dead 2 weeks later. We finally put the extremely disabled pullet down at that time. Two weeks later another pullet and cockerel became symptomatic. The cockerel seemed to improve with medication for coccidia, but crashed suddenly one day and died shortly after. He was about 16 weeks old, and I took him for a necropsy at the state agriculture department in TN. The attached filed "Pathology_report_Birchen_Marans" is the pathology report. We are planning to put the other symptomatic female down next week so we can take the body in immediately for necropsy (this is important because the structures that diagnose break down within hours). We also had a severe outbreak of coccidiosis at the 10-12 week mark and we thought this had been the issue. When it didn't resolve with antibiotics and Corid, and birds kept dying, we knew there was something more. Strangely my Silverudds Blues are all healthy (once we passed the coccidia outbreak).
The official diagnosis is Avian Leukosis. It is viral and causes lymphoma. There is no treatment and no vaccine. Early infection like these birds had will lead to lifetime shedding of the virus through egg yolk, albumin and feces. This means the disease can be passed from mother to baby via egg, and "horizontally" to anyone else via feces. The only way to eliminate it from your flock is to cull the entire flock, disinfect, and start again. The virus is easily killed by standard disinfection. Needless to say breeding eggs or chicks for reproduction is totally out. It has a long incubation period so you do not usually see it in chicks until around 16 weeks. Birds exposed after 12-20 weeks of age according to Merck will not become lifetime shedders of virus. One website said it can be passed through reproduction, but another journal article I read said that hasn't been proven. According to my vet the only definitive way to diagnosis is through examination within hours after death, however a DVM on facebook said there is now a reliable PCR test?
I am frustrated, heartbroken, and still reeling over how to deal with it. We will likely cull anyone symptomatic and see how the adult birds deal with it before culling the flock. The following circumstances and facts lead me to believe the illness originated in the hatchery:
The long incubation period
The lack of exposure of the GF birds to any birds in my flock or any other birds or people around other birds
The very good health of my adult birds
The symptoms being 100% restricted to the group of chicks from GFF
The virus being communicable from mother to chick via yolk and albumin
If you have chickens sick or dropping dead - I suggest taking them to your state agriculture lab which is generally very easy to find on the internet and they do the necropsy (that's an animal autopsy) and all associated testing for Mareks etc - sometimes for free or reduced price on non-companion species. Make sure to take the animal in immediately after death or refrigerate just above freezing until you can - the structures that assist in diagnosis decompose rapidly.
Another acquaintance of mine (who I met online because we both bought birds from the same hatch date from GFF) just had her dead birds necropsied - the report showed Mareks, Infectious Bronchitis, Coccidiosis, and Mycoplasma synoviae. They are attached.
Attachments
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