Infectious Laryngotracheitis

[speckledhen]

I agree with Ivan, eloquent. indeed.


Here is a good article on the vaccinations for ILT, if anyone is interested: http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/1430/new-treatments-offer-help-against-surging-ilt-in-poultry

The problem with vaccinations is that you must be VERY careful as certain types actually make the bird a carrier of the disease you are vaccinating against.

There are so many diseases of poultry that it could be cost- prohibitive to vaccinate against every single disease a chicken may get in its life, plus they must be vaccinated for certain things at different times, some have boosters to be given later, etc, etc. It's quite a trap to start trying to vaccinate for every single disease.

I do not vaccinate for anything and I refuse to start. The best cure for disease is euthanasia. It's also the most cost-effective for a backyard flock. Simple and to the point.

Jules, again, I am so very sorry. My heart breaks for you. You are very brave and made such a hard, but I believe, wise, decision.

Anyone coming here must spray their shoes with an Oxine solution. No one who comes to get birds or eggs goes into my coops or pens and I'm tightening security in the future as well.

 

[CowgirlJules]

That's very interesting, speckledhen, and I wish I'd seen that article before I'd ordered my vaccines. I'm not sure if that's the one I got or not.

It's amazing how difficult it is to wade through all of the information out there. All of my research on symptoms before I had the lab tests done never even brought up ILT, and I wish they had, although the outcome would have been the same. I spent the week looking up everything I could, from articles written by vaccine manufacturers to researched presentation papers. I got an absolute landslide of information, but picking out the relevant stuff is challenging, to say the least. Most of the real-life useful stuff I found was in fact, here. That's another reason I chose to post about my situation here, so other people would have a place to find useful information.

Here's an article from the APA which I found useful to help narrow down symptoms. I think it was posted in this thread before. Respiratory Diseases in Poultry.

 

[CowgirlJules]

Oh, and I was just going to go with bleach for disinfecting my equipment (I run water systems for a living; I have access to a LOT of bleach) but I"ve heard so many good things about oxine that I just ordered a gallon so I'll have it on hand for the next flock.

 

[RedDrgn]

Holy good freakin' gracious, I am so sorry this happened and that you've had to go through it.

At the very least, you were able to put your finger on where your biosecurity breaches were and what the causative agent was and make a well-informed decision about it. I hope that I can do the same with our flock soon.

 

[wildfire8]

Firstly THANK YOU for taking the time to post this. Ive kept chickens in very small numbers off and on. Its only now that we are looking to get serious. Actually choosing birds. And much of what you listed I did not consider. So this will help a ton.
Secondly, Im so very sorry. Your a braver woman than I could be. And I know it must hurt horribly.

 

[CowgirlJules]

RedDrgn, I actually will never know for sure which security breach did the deed. It could have been any number of things. Some I will never be able to reasonably control, like the wild birds and the wood rats. If I were to try to control those, I'd have to raise my flock in essentially Fort Knox, all indoors and locked down. And I don't believe that's right, so I'd rather just not have birds than do that. I think they should be able to roam around and eat bugs and be chickens, except in special circumstances.

So I have to take a calculated risk, of controlling the factors that I can, in order to minimize exposure. I don't think it's possible to completely eliminate exposure.

Thank you all for your kind words. It was most likely my mistake, and I hope to educate other people, to prevent them from making the same one.

 

[CowgirlJules]

Well, that's the end of my flock. It took me hours to cull them all. Now I begin a massive decontamination effort. I have plenty of bleach and have some Oxine coming. I'll be removing all the bedding from all of the pens - not sure if I'm going to burn that or compost it. Then I'll scrub down and disinfect all equipment and surfaces. I've already started that, actually, as I empty pens.

Does anyone know if I should let the bare ground just sit exposed to the UV light, or should I tractor it a few times and mix things up?

 

[crissycriss]

Thank you so much for sharing.I have cried my eyes out.Never thought anything like this could happen.(can tell i am new to raising chickens.)Iam going to start with all the precautions you have started doing.I am so very sorry for all your loss and heartache.Thank you so much for sharing and opening my eyes up.wishing you the best.

 

[Symphony]

Thank you for this! Thankfully I do not have this, but I do have Infectious Coryza, sadly, and I am am doing a massive culling of everyone with even the slightest signs. Us moving will be very helpful for our next flock, we will start all over again except for a duck, a bantam, and a standard sixed chickens. The chickens that we will take are not showing any sings of Coryza, so hopefully we will have a healthy flock after moving.

 

[annabell254]

OMG!!! I am crying! I cannot imagine...well yes I can in some ways...I raise Great Danes, and I too would proudly show off my girls and boys to new puppy owners coming to pick up puppies...I never allow them in my puppy room or yard but would bring out adults to them...I had a new Prego Blue Harl girl that everyone was raving about and just had to see...10 days after she gave birth the puppies began to die one by one a horrible but fast death...they were already sold and I had to not only go through their death but then had to inform their new families...it was gestational Parvo, my vet had never even seen it...apparently my girl had not had her shots or they had been bad before I bought her even though I was told she had them, and one of my puppy families must have given it to her...it was last year and I am still devastated over it, it is the hardest thing I have had to go through to this date....needless to say I'm hard core about sanitation and visitation now it is a shame as people love to interact with all of my dogs and the dogs love it to, but I'm just so scared now

) and now I have to worry about my chickens! ARRRGGG!!!! but thank you so much for your post....I know how hard it must have been to write it.....