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That you don't even KNOW who your local farm vet with poultry experience is tells a LOT. And umm simple bacteria like Salmonellas are communicable and dangerous. And you let it run for years.
People didn't help you on lists, and groups because it's IMPOSSIBLE to diagnose over the internet. What Peter Brown did was throw a broad spectrum antibiotic at your poultry and hope.
And while it may have temporarily solved your issues, it's probably masking a remaining one. A flock broadly infected with bacteria require more than just a round of anti-biotics. Reinfection is likely without environmental change and even then, some will continue carriers if it is resistent. Every chick brought up subject to exposure.
You need to know what it is. Whether one round of antibiotics are going to fix it with remedial decontamination of equipment and coops or if you need to repeat it, if you need a specific bacteriacide for the coops/roosts/nests. In short, a poultry vet. Which there are a LOT of. They do farm practice, they often raise poultry. Mine has a nice line of show chickens.
You need to test. If you don't test it could all restart fairly swiftly, then you'd remedicate, it would fade, become more resistent, reappear, and you have a cycle not a solution. Find OUT what it is. Be sure you do what it takes to fight it.
The poultry guy up the street or the next county over cannot SEE what bacteria or other micro-organism it is that is doing it. It could be bacterial AND fungal, or mold. All of those are simple celled organisms that can permanently harm and reappear, after OTC anti-biotics.
All the while you could be transporting whatever it is all over the county on your shoes/clothes and tires. Gee thanks.
Once again. Folks at some point, it pays to find a vet in your county that knows and handles poultry. Virulent, recurrent fertility problems, hatch problems can be systemic infections due to bacteria, fungus, or mold and requires diagnosis.
Letting it go years, while you ask on lists and wonder why no one wants to diagnose online, is not good flock management and may cause harm to people other than yourself.
Find a vet, even when you dont need one. Your county extension agent will usually have several referals.
If you don't know your county extension agent - see about finding them. They're dead useful people - the often even know who is breeding what, well, in your area a real resource.
They can refer to vets that KNOW poultry and sometimes let you know of small farm assistance programs in your area.
If you have spare purebred birds the extension agent can hook you up with 4-H ers who really deserve to have good birds and an interest in poultry but cannot afford them.
Rather than sit on a dying farm with your head in the sand, seek actual specific diagnosis, follow veterinary advice and get the problem solved rather than masked. Good flock management and responsible poultry farming is up to us all, or they WILL pass more laws against the small flock holders and small farmers.
This is why not to sit on a problem for years. It's kind of cruel to the flock, and it's a public problem, both from a contamination standpoint and a public perception standpoint.
Harboring a disease or a bacterial contamination source is everyone's problem in his county.
Even the poultry guys he'd "rather" trust but didn't consult. Probably because they'd stone him at this point for ignoring it for years.
At the fairs/swaps/markets I attend the Old Poultry Guys, that I started talking to when I got into chickens in my county - through my extension agent, they point out folks. "That guy has bad chickens, sick chickens, never BUY from this one or that one." They all know someone with poor management, they tell each other.
Yes, good poultry people are a HUGE help. Find them. Talk to them. See who they work with and who they won't. Have them recommend a good poultry vet. Find your local, reliable resources before a problem even happens.
I have a local mentor. I have a local vet, I have only needed once but I KNOW who he is, he knows my face. I know my extension agent.
Poultry keeping is about more than just your flock, stuff leaves your place on your clothes, your tires, your shoes.
Flock management is just as important in a small closed flock as it is in a large one. Do the right thing, not the cheap one.
If we do not police ourselves, our rights to our small flocks will go away.
