Foamy Eye...

[gumpsgirl]

So you know exactly where I am coming from in urging you to quarantine! It is truly horrifying to have a sick flock. Southerbelle just got done having to cull her entire flock because of MG.

I'm truly hoping that this was just a fluke for your hen, but it certainly does make one scratch their head. Foamy eyes don't usually just pop up for nothing. With your college background, I know I don't need to preach that one to you!

As far as the migrating birds go, you don't put out any feeders or bird baths for them do you? I'd get rid of anything outside of the coop that would bring them down into your yard if you have anything out for them.

 

[Southernbelle]

I didn't want to totally devastate you, but it started that exact same way for me. One hen with a foamy eye - no sneezing and everything else normal. Quarantined. Eye got better within hours. Within a day or so she started sneezing and I called in the state vet who tested her and some of my other birds. Came back MG positive and we had a friend come out Memorial day weekend to dispatch my whole flock. Even though I quarantined the sick bird right away, she probably infected them before showing signs herself because the others started some soft sneezing within a week.

I had the option of closing my flock and keeping my birds for eating eggs (again MG is not zoonotic). I just wouldn't be able to sell chicks, birds or hatching eggs. I didn't want to be limited like that and I didn't want to spread it.

How's your hen doing?

 

[sarahs31]

So far so good. Nobody else, no sneezing, no additional foam. I know she'd been roaming the barn and looked to be kind of "dirty" so I was somewhat hoping that perhaps she'd gotten dirt in her eye from crawling under dusty dirty things....hopeful thinking, I'm sure
No crusty eyes as of yet. Time will tell. Do you have an idea where you'd have picked up MG? I'm feel so bad for you and your choices you had to make. Uughg. Just seems so disappointing....

 

[caralouise1974]

Hey everyone, the important thing to remember about MG is that it is quite easily treatable and the vast majority of birds recover. Yes the whole flock will probably be infected, and yes they will all be carriers for life and have the occasional relapse, and yes it will transfer through their eggs to any chicks you wish to hatch, but here in the UK, most backyard flocks have it - it is simply an accepted part of poultry keeping. It's almost considered as common as worms... ie a condition which you have to manage and if neccessary treat reactively, rather than try to eradicate completely through drastic measures such as culling/restocking.

I have absolutely no intention of culling my beloved Henrietta just because of a sniffle she had three months ago. She is completely recovered and very healthy and has a great life. Her companion Bella actually never showed any signs of disease, although we think that as a hatchery bird she had been immunised against MG as a chick. And we are lucky in that there are only the two of them, and we treat them as pets - hence we don't really care about hatching chicks or selling eggs or otherwise making money from our girls.

Anyway, my point here is that MG is only a total disaster in a flock if you want to make it that way. So don't be downhearted sarahs31 - your chicken(s) will most likely completely recover and your flock can carry on as normal, as long as you don't mind the odd relapse, you don't want to use your girls for breeding etc, and you accept the risk of any new birds you bring in picking up the MG too (and needing the Tylan treatment).

I just wanted to offer you a positive opinion on mycoplasma! It really needn't be the end of the world...

(Oh, and I'd seriously doubt it was something in her eye by the way - the foamy stuff that you see in chickens' eyes comes from the sinuses, which are directly located adjacent to and beneath the eye socket. Only a respiratory disease would cause the sinuses to foam up, not a foreign body in the eye. Sounds like classic mycoplasma to me.)

 

[gumpsgirl]

Quote:
Here in the United States, many states will cull your flock if your chickens are found to have MG. It is important here to eradicate the disease. I now see why it is illegal to import hatching eggs from the UK without all of the red tape you have to go through.

 

[caralouise1974]

Absolutely agreed. But I thought it important to give sarahs31 some positive feedback from my experience of MG, and over here mycoplasma is really not much more than an accepted and very common poultry keeping nuisance. The birds do (90 times out of 100) recover fully, and that is the main thing which keeps it in the category of 'nuisance' rather than being a notifiable disease.

Obviously if local rules dictate you have to cull, or if you intend to profit financially from your flock through egg sales/breeding etc, MG is pretty bad news and does put a total dampener on your future activities even if all your birds recover, but the hobbyist backyard keeper doesn't neccessarily need to see it as a complete disaster if they only have a few birds as pets.

I really don't feel it is imperitive to cull/destock unless you really have to/are forced to, that's all.

Just offering a moderate opinion from good old Blighty...

 

[sarahs31]

Caralouise1974 - thanks for the encouragement. Here's my take on the whole thing.

We, here in the States, have supposedly erradicated it from our large commercial breeding facilities...which are very controlled atmospheres. It still remains a serious problem to our large scale egg productions and probably most of our backyard operations. It's endemic to our finch population so unless you have a closed farm with NO chance of them ever seeing a wild bird (meaning NO FREE RANGE) and you never leave the farm for any other reason, you will run the risk of getting the disease. Morbidity(meaning "get the disease" is very high) and mortality (meaning "did you die") is very low. This can equal lots of carriers shedding the disease without even knowing it.

As Southernbelle will attest, erradicating and then disinfecting your entire facility is one way of dealing with an outbreak as Mycoplasma is pretty susceptible to it. But for most BYC owners, this isn't so practical, especialy if you free range and aren't so worried about selling birds, eggs for incubation etc. Most large scale operations have an "all in/all out" type production so this isn't an issue as they can disinfect when they turn over the flock.

Since most of our backyard farms are multi-aged and could very well already be infected...would it be helpful to vaccinate any new arrivals against MG? I'm just thinking eventually you'd have a flock that's protected against this disease.

But so far, nothing new to report...but today is a new day and I'll see. You guys are the best. SB...will you be vaccinating? I'm a little nervous about the whole needle thing...you'd think since I work in the lab and draw blood that it wouldn't be an issue....ha, don't mind hurting people...but my chickens...that's a different story.

 

[gumpsgirl]

I was very nervous about the whole needle thing when my flock fell ill to Infectious Coryza last year, but it wasn't really that bad! The chickens skin is so thin and the needles are so sharp, it wasn't really any big deal. I now vaccinate all of our dogs too! I promise it's not that bad.

 

[Southernbelle]

I haven't really looked into vaccination because I was under the assumption that they were live viruses and I really didn't want to introduce it on purpose!!! I'll have to look into that, if it would guarantee me an MG free flock

 

[sarahs31]

Many of our human vaccines are live viruses. I'm not positive but I think the chicken pox one...for example. Many of our disease are a result of dose load. For example you can handle say 10000 Strep Bacteria but 1 million will give you Strep throat and a vaccine is giving you just enough to start your immune response and not give you the actual disease. (just an example, not actual data on the Strep amounts so don't go giving yourself 10000 Streps.

) But yes, as with any live vaccine sometimes a person's immune system is lower and can come down with the disease.....A calculated risk, I'm sure.

I thought I remember reading about one for MG that isn't a live bacteria. Check it out. There's a lot of good literature out there...I'm afraid a vaccine may be the way to go if you are looking to have a clean operation that sells chicks and cannot control the surrounding environment. Of couse, this is just my personal thoughts, and not neccessarily endored by BYC or any other official personel.