Thank you.
As far as the Wild birds go, it is a different strain or type I have heard it referred to as the Wild type of Mycoplasma, not the same as the Mycoplasmas normally in poultry. It is still a good idea to discourage the Wild Birds from the poultrys areas, especially their food and water.
I did my testing by contacting a 4H Advisor that was certified to do NPIP testing and had her help me to do the blood draws, took 2cc's in specific blood serum collector tubes, the tubes can't be coated inside or outside and they have the red caps, I found a Vet that sold me the tubes for about 75cents each, fresh syringes and needles from
TSC, and mail the Blood thru Fed Ex, they are the only one that will ship blood, I put the tubes labeled and wrapped inside of a small box, taped the box, and put that inside of a larger zip lock baggie and into another box and addressed the box for mailing to the Lab, I don't do my blood testing thru the Ohio Lab for my birds, I send it out of state to another Lab with the same credentials as the Ohio Lab, here in Ohio you have to have the State Avian Vet involved to do blood work, and the cost several years ago for them seeing one bird was 75 dollars each, and then the costs of the testing are higher here in Ohio, as well as the turn around time is longer to get your results back from them, some people have waited almost a month to get results back, so I send to the Lab out of state, they have a grandfather clause that allows you to draw the blood from your poultry yourself and send it in for testing in their state, the cost of the testing is higher for out of state, but still less than what the Ohio Lab was charging, I had 4 birds blood work done a couple of years ago, I paid the 4H Advisor about 15 to 16 dollars at the time for helping me, they get 2 per bird for doing the NPIP testing, so she was fine with that, I sent the blood for the earliest delivery to the Lab, which was higher, around 28 to 30 if I remember correctly thru Fed Ex, I think it was around 5 to 6 dollars for the syringes and needles from
TSC, and the tests they did, they started on as soon as they got the blood tubes I sent the next day, I knew in 3 days the results of my birds blood work, the Vet suggested from the symptoms I told him to test for MS and MG, and he was right on the money, they did 3 tests on the samples because you can get a false positive with certain tests, and they actually grew it from the blood serum I sent, the cost of the testing for the 4 birds was 56.04 total, not each. So I paid right around 100 dollars to have 4 birds tested, I would have paid 300 just for the Avian Vet here to see them, and the tests were higher than the out of state Labs fees for the tests I had done. And like I said I knew in 3 days and got quite the education on Mycoplasmas, in addition to that I contacted poultry science people accross the country in several different states, I had to depopulate those first birds I got and search for clean birds tested clean of all diseases including the Mycoplasmas, which took an extremely long time to locate, that is how I know certain Universities that have clean birds including clean of Mycoplasmas, and their bio security is very strict, no way do you walk into where their birds are, they bring them out to you, they also will not ship, so you have to go and get them. It was in the searching for clean birds that I found what I use for my birds and it is used in Europe for preventative and treatment of Mycoplasmas, in the US it isn't available to us, I found the same drug and use the European sites dosage and precautions information for treating my birds, and it does work, it is very easy to use, no shots, most people see results in about 3 days, by 5 days some people have told me that you couldn't even tell they had ever been sick. I use it because it took me so long to locate clean birds and I wanted a way to try and keep them clean, I started responding to posts from people whose birds I knew had the Mycoplasmas just by the symptoms they described and let them decide if they wanted to try it and gave the information on where to get it as well as the dosage information, at the time I was the only one that knew about this, I just could have kept the information to myself for my own birds but saw so many people loosing birds and knew how I felt when my original flock of birds was sick and nothing worked and then did the testing to get told I had to depopulate and that they would never get rid of it because the strains my birds had were extremely strong strains. That was when I started telling others about what I use and showing them the information to understand how it works. It is really different than you'd think as to how Mycoplasmas work, it's not something an immunity can be built up to, they either have it or they don't and blood tests will tell you for sure. What I use does offer a way of getting a clean flock from a dirty flock if that is how you would choose to use it, its not just a one time treatment, it's mixed in their water for 3 to 5 days a month for a preventative dosage, there are several other dosage options for using it depending upon your purpose. I did most recently bring in 2 birds that I knew ahead of time have Mycoplasmas, I started treating them as soon as they hit the door as well as put all of my other birds on preventative dosages, when I first got these 2 hens there was only sneezing from the one hen, both had black in their combs, the ones comb was edged in black, it went away 2 days after she started treatments, the other comb was completely black and was the one that sneezed, the sneezing stopped the first day, it took several treatments with breaks in between to get the one hens comb completely clean of the black, like almost a month and a half, both of these hens when they first arrived laid whitish eggs, they had always laid whitish eggs for the 3 to 4 years the woman owned them, into the second round of treatments I started getting brown eggs from the one hen with the total black comb and the eggs have stayed brown since then, I sent pictures of the eggs I was getting to the woman they came from and she was shocked at the egg color I got, she now is also using what I use for the rest of her birds. I will test both of these hens in a couple months for the MS/MG to see how much I have reduced it with them, what I use will only work for the Mycoplasmas/CRD if it hadn't been that, I wouldn't have gotten results like I did, so I knew it had to be what the issue was with the hens, I'll also test for other diseases as well with them when I do test, currently they are doing quite well, I want to use them for breeders was the reason I got them, so testing before breeding is going to be necessary to know where they stand on the disease issues, I also have them pretty well isolated from my other birds, I just don't isolate for a month and then release, I test to know for sure, and these are the first birds I have even considered adding to my clean flock, if they wasn't as rare as what they are I wouldn't have considered it. No way do I want the ugly head of Mycoplasma to show itself again, so I use a prevenative and closely monitor my birds on a daily basis a couple of times a day, I literally handle each bird daily at least once a day if not twice a day, so I know the health of my birds. I have about 30 birds total, two separate breeds.
There are specific precautions to what I use, those must be observed first above all esle, I don't just give the name of a product and turn people loose without them knowing the precautions, I am trying to make it safe for the birds and to help people to help their birds, my birds are pretty special to me and know others who also value their birds. What I use we are using off label and it does work. There are currently about 200 people accross the country using this to try and breed this out of their birds, you can go to this site
www.tiamutin.com This is not what you can purchase here, when the page comes up there is a menu on the left, locate Pig and Poultry diseases and click on that, go half way down the page that comes up and read about poultry, then notice above the menu there is a box, that is a search box, in that box put the word lesions in it and hit go, another page will come up, from the list locate Mycoplasmas and click on that and read thru that information, then in the box put the words field trials and hit go, there are 3 of them, read thru those, you will find in reading that what I use is rated better than anything we currently are using here, also in the empty box put the word Coccidiosis and hit go, another page will come up, from the list locate Anti-Coccidials and hit go, these are the lists of the drugs that are safe to use with this, for the time being, I've given plenty of searches and reading, I will give more information after you've done the searches, you can also do in the box day old chicks, this is used to keep the lesions from forming, which make it possible for diseases to penetrate their systems. Sorry it is so lengthy, but necessary. If you explore the site, you will also find this is used for egg production and also improves fertility. I haven't used Laying Feed for at least 6 months and from my Araucanas get eggs every other day all year long including in the winter months, every day I have eggs, molts last for about 2 weeks and then right back up to laying again. Explore what I have already given you.
