Avian Influenza

[Turkey4]

Why are you forced to cull birds if they have avian influenza? They often do not use humane methods and it rarely affects humans. Examples of methods to cull them are smothering them with foam, shutting off ventilation, filling the air with CO2, raising the heat. Most of those are slow and painful deaths. Moth of the deaths are caused by culling rather than the actual virus. Perhaps birds could actually develop an immunity if given the chance to adapt. Humans are not murdered if they are sick nowadays, so why should our poultry have to suffer these cruel practices? People rarely even give the birds a chance or even try to experiment with different treatments. It doesn’t really seem very effective when wild birds will still spread diseases. I have heard of some people successfully having birds recover, but I am not sure how reliable that information is. I’m not sure if this is the right forum for this.

 

[tripletfeb]

It's all about control. Control the food, control the people

 

[Waterfowllady]

Why are you forced to cull birds if they have avian influenza? They often do not use humane methods and it rarely affects humans. Examples of methods to cull them are smothering them with foam, shutting off ventilation, filling the air with CO2, raising the heat. Most of those are slow and painful deaths. Moth of the deaths are caused by culling rather than the actual virus. Perhaps birds could actually develop an immunity if given the chance to adapt. Humans are not murdered if they are sick nowadays, so why should our poultry have to suffer these cruel practices? People rarely even give the birds a chance or even try to experiment with different treatments. It doesn’t really seem very effective when wild birds will still spread diseases. I have heard of some people successfully having birds recover, but I am not sure how reliable that information is. I’m not sure if this is the right forum for this.

You are not forced to cull them, but people choose to as they don't wan't to lose more money. My flock recently got it and they offered me reimbursement for euthanasia or quarantining them for 120 days and no reimbursement for already dead birds. They do develop immunity if they survive it. I do think if the government really cared and didn't want to control the food supply, they would fund farmers for their lost birds and let it cycle through the flock so that they all slowly develop immunity to influenza. That way it would be less detrimental to farmers when their flock gets it. Wild bird populations have already developed immunities just the same. Birds CAN recover, I had a few who did, but it is a small percentage, all my chickens who got it died without any symptoms, but some of my waterfowl survived it and had symptoms.

 

[Chickiechikie]

So here is my fear..... just had the flu take my flock about a month ago. One lonely bird survived out of 24. The coop will be disinfected and redone and we plan to introduce a hen or 2 in about 2 months. Will the surviving hen be a carrier forever? I've placed an order to get a whole new flock in April and I'm a nervous wreck.

 

[Waterfowllady]

So here is my fear..... just had the flu take my flock about a month ago. One lonely bird survived out of 24. The coop will be disinfected and redone and we plan to introduce a hen or 2 in about 2 months. Will the surviving hen be a carrier forever? I've placed an order to get a whole new flock in April and I'm a nervous wreck.

I also have one chicken who survived and I had the same fear. So long as there is an adequate quarantine period (2 months is good) the hen should have just developed antibodies to it after surviving and won’t be a carrier. I was told to QT for 120 days but I think that’s probably on the excessive side just to make sure it’s gone. Let me know how it goes.