just when i finally get my coop running with no glitches, babies popping out of eggs like popcorn, and plans for some pekin hens, five people died in the past week of swine flue sooooooo the heat is on, the hysteria is rampant, i have five hens close to our housing area, blablablba.... i know my leghorn pullets were vaccinated since they come from a regular laying farm, but all my thai fighting chickens were for sure not vaccinated, and neither are my four shnitzel pullets nor my thai babies.... here vaccines for for chickens are only thru professional chicken coop vets (i.e. private vets, sponsered by large animal drug companies), thru the country. hobbyists dont do vaccines or they have to know someone who knows someone to get the vaccines.... can someone fowl vet oriented give me some ideas of what is needed before i turn to my goat farm vet from the past? for the chicks , did i miss the deadline already? for my layers, what needs to be done? i can ask on the israeli mini forum we have here but there also seems to be differences of opinion since one advisor is representing minisitry of health agric. dept and there are a lot of politics involved in country wide vaccination programs for farm animals (and dogs). worse comes to worse can i order vaccines for here over the internet? or does the vaccine have to be local oriented? (and then i will need to know how to work out the dosages and how to give it. i can do goats/sheep/and other four footed animals but havent figured out how to inject birds. im being proactive since a few years ago we had to slaughter all our ducks, chickens, doves, and keep everything else caged hermetically due to public hysteria, when there was an outbreak of newcastle that was misidentified as avian flue... that included all the kibbutz owned chicken coops being put in to lockdown etc. i know there is a huge difference between avian flu and swine flu (avian is rare and mostly only zoonoses; swine flu is more common and moves between humans), but most poeple here dont...
