Diseases chicken spread? Risk of illness??

[aoxa]

I do know what my dogs are eating and licking. That's why they don't lick my face.
Any pet, dog, cat, chicken, turtle, or whatever can give you diseases. Follow reasonable hygeine, which mainly involves soap and water and keeping your dirty hands away from your face, and your risks are greatly reduced.

Exactly!

My darn dogs are so disgusting! So much more so than my chickens

I try to get them to stay away from my hands, but I can't always control everything. I need to keep a thing of anti-bacterial stuff for when they do it. This was the one and only time I was ever effected by their dirty mouths

 

[openheartnurse]

Thanks for all the information! I feel a little better about having the chickens and children around them. I work in the healthcare field and sometimes that can almost make you more nervous about diseases and their processes because you see what these diseases can do to people. So then the other question would be, how often do you change the shavings in the coop and what do you do with the shavings in the city? Garbage? Any ideas of good coop designs or prebuilt coops to purchase for 3-6 chickens or so? Sorry getting a little off subject of the original post.

Thanks,

Will

 

[aoxa]

Thanks for all the information!  I feel a little better about having the chickens and children around them.  I work in the healthcare field and sometimes that can almost make you more nervous about diseases and their processes because you see what these diseases can do to people.  So then the other question would be, how often do you change the shavings in the coop and what do you do with the shavings in the city? Garbage?  Any ideas of good coop designs or prebuilt coops to purchase for 3-6 chickens or so? Sorry getting a little off subject of the original post.

Thanks,

Will

I only clean my coop out 2-3 times a year. I use deep litter method, which is very easy for me, and has little to no smell at all. The shavings compost and I will use it on my garden. Remember the bacteria I was talking about is very sensitive and can not survive for long outside the body of the host.

 

[JerseyGiantfolk]

No problem

 

[Duramaxgirl]

I have 4 kids. Aged from 4-9. I've had chickens for 2 years. The kids have never had a sickness from the birds. My kids love playing with them to. I'm always out in the yard with them when their playing in the coops or runs. Washing your hands is your best friend. I always make sure my kids wash their hands after playing with the chickens or cats or any animals for that matter. I agree a little dirt is better for their immune systems then a complete sterile inviorment.
I've a really cute pic of my youngest playing with my moms Cornish Xs and she's still healthy and wild to this day... I can't figure out how to post pics in this new forum platform...sigh...

 

[JerseyGiantfolk]

Chickens are actually pretty clean, they groom when needed, and they wipe their beaks. But other than that their feet get muddy, and they try to drink from nasty water other than theirs.

 

[6chickens in St. Charles]

Hello! I am a nurse too! I recently posted this in a thread asking whether people wash their eggs or not:

I recently cared for a college student with campylobacter infection of the bowel. He had nearly died from this food poisoning. I helped him look it up, it is usually transmitted via bird poop or eating contaminated poultry or eggs. So, that got me thinking about the campylobacter bacteria. Why do I feed my family unwashed backyard chicken eggs and nobody here has had the near death experience like my patient? These are the discussion points we considered:

1. The silky soft waxy "bloom" on the eggshell does indeed keep chicken's bacterial stuff outside the egg.

2. Campylobacter is a warm-water-inhabiting bacteria which dies in airy, oxygen rich environments. It requires warmer than 100 degrees to reproduce, without much oxygen. Campylobacter are usually transmitted via jacuzzi's, private swimming pools, warm puddles and undercooked poultry. Birds are excellent carriers for campylobacter, as birds' core temp is usually 103 degrees, often higher. The egg sitting in a basket on our kitchen counter is not nearly warm enough to support campylobacter, even if it had been smeared onto the egg during lay.

3. We make everybody warsh their mitts before preparing and eating food. So if they've touched warm wet campylobacter-soiled stuff, it is washed off.

4. the college-age patient stated he often ran through goose-poop infested short-cuts to class and to the cafeteria, without taking time to wash hands before eating. Likely, he believed he must have tied/removed/put on his soiled shoes once or twice before eating, at least a few times before becoming ill. None of his family or friends became ill, and they have been sharing food.

5. We are not too careful about chicken poop in our yard, but we all wear "outside shoes" which are left in the mudroom and change into "inside shoes" indoors. Still, we believe chicken poop germs are around, and we have developed healthy normal immunity over the course of 3+ years living with our pet chickens.

We do not wash our eggs. They taste even better after sitting on the counter in their basket for at least a week. Sometimes I turn them, though, so there are no moist spots which don't get exposure to air or light.

When we first got chickens (quite by accident), I made a binder of the diseases we could catch, and the diseases they could catch. Its been almost 4 years and nobody here has caught anything, not one chicken and not one other pet and no humans, either. We do employ the A.P.H.I.S. recommendations, do you have their poster & stuff? Its free:
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/birdbiosecurity/ I think this website is fun.