Flock infected - IB, MG, Newcastle :(

[mdc05]

We took one of our roosters to the local university AG hospital this past weekend because of respiratory illness, and it turns out he had super high titers for infectious bronchitis. He also had the mild form of Newcastle, and was positive for mycoplasma gallisepticum. We've actually lost about 33% of our flock already and we still have sick birds. We've treated with tetracycline and sulmet, yet there isn't much improvement.

I know there are opposing views in this group about culling the flock for MG, as wild birds can carry it to our free range birds. Even the vet said most back yard flocks have MG, and it's nearly impossible to get rid of from your yard, even if you cull the flock...

But what about IB? It seems from what I've read, our egg production will be down, and may never recover. It's a young flock, less than a year old. We had hoped to hatch out chicks, but we have no idea what to do now. With the MG we'd have to keep a closed flock anyway I guess, and I'm assuming the same thing with IB since the birds will be carriers of both now. After bringing all this illness in with new birds, we wouldn't bring in any adult birds anyway. But we did want chicks again.

I guess really we don't have a lot of questions, just looking for experiences and input so we can make a good decision on whether to cull or keep.


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[Eggcessive]

With infectious bronchitis, your chickens will only carriers of that for 5 months to 1 year. Birds should not be added or new chicks hatched during that year to prevent the disease from being passed on. Of course, with MG, it makes carriers for life. Many people who have mycoplasma positive flocks use Denagard as a once a month preventative, and as a treatment for an outbreak. I am not as familiar with Newcastles disease, except that we don't see the most deadly strain in the US.
I would probably take some time and see how the remaining chickens handle their illness, and usually they can return to full production after IB. By next spring you should have an idea of how they are doing physically, and can go from there. Keep in mind that other fowl species can pass on some of these diseases, especially MG, so if you cull, you will need to remove all species. With that many birds, it may be good to close the flock untill all are gone. Hopefully some others who have gone through similar illness will chime in to offer advice. Here is the link that I usually refer to people that describes many respiratory illnesses to compare symptoms: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044

 

[mdc05]

That link was really helpful when we thought it was gapeworms and you shared it on that thread I had started. It seriously led me to think about the IB, which it turned out to be the main culprit. Thanks for the info. We are pretty bummed with how things have turned out and how sick they all have been. Hopefully we have more than a few survive. It's been a rough month

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